- About
News and resources
Find the latest updates, reports, and tools from Right To Food. Stay informed about the work happening across our network.
Learn more + - Community
Food Centres
Search our network across Canada
Explore our interactive map to discover Community Food Centres and Good Food Organizations across Canada. Learn more about each location and find out how to get involved in the movement for the right to food.
Learn more + - Good Food
Organizations
Our Indigenous Network
As a non-Indigenous organization, Right To Food recognizes our unique role in supporting a wide range of Indigenous-serving programs. We are committed to meeting organizations where they are at, offering diverse program options to foster reconciliation and resurgence.
Learn more + - The Learning
Commons
The Learning Commons at Right To Food
The Learning Commons was created to support and strengthen the sector. Through a range of learning opportunities, peer networks, resources, and gatherings, The Learning Commons offers practical, ongoing support to support organizations that sustain their work and amplify their impact.
Learn more + - Policy and
Advocacy
- Support
Support Right To Food
We believe food is a basic right. Your gift can make lasting change possible.
Learn more + - Contact
About Right To Food
Right To Food is a national organization transforming the way we address food insecurity through an innovative, dignity-first model. With our 450 partners across the country, we create respectful spaces where people can access healthy food, build skills, find community, and advocate for more inclusive public policy.
Together, we’re building a movement of responsive and effective community food organizations that understand food is never just food: It’s about dignity, well-being, community, and justice. Founded in 2012 as Community Food Centres Canada, Right To Food will continue to lead a cross-country commitment to good food for all.
Our work
We work in the following areas to advance our mission:
- We co-create and support Community Food Centres, dignified spaces where people grow, cook, share and advocate for good food. These centres offer programs that foster well-being, belonging, and are rooted in respect. Read our latest Impact Report.
- We strengthen the community food sector by providing training, program models, knowledge sharing and funding so they can more effectively focus on frontline work.
- We advocate for policy change through national campaigns, local actions, policy tools and training. With our 450 partners across the country, we strive to make the right to food a reality for all.
Our vision
We believe in a country where the right to food is realized for all and where every community has a place for food that nurtures health and well-being, belonging, and social justice.
Our mission
We resource and strengthen the community food sector and mobilize with our partners for progressive policy change.
Our values
Equity is the heartbeat of our work, guiding all we do.
We speak up for systemic change, knowing that food is a basic human right and equity makes food accessible to all. By practicing reconciliation, anti-racism, and anti-oppression, we foster justice and belonging—in our community of staff and the community at large.
We commit to brave ideas and actions.
Emboldened to explore new ways of working, we find collective courage in collaborating with partners, communities, and each other. Together, we reimagine food and social systems that are equitable.
We work in common cause with others.
We collaborate with respect and reciprocity. Working relationally moves us to reflect, learn from, and support each other. Reaching across power divides, we lead with care and act in solidarity.
Integrity is a practice we live by.
We honour our commitments, with openness and generosity. We learn from our mistakes—and unlearn our biases. And in all we do, we commit to staying humble and accountable.
We thank our partners, whose values inspired our own.
Our Right To Food story
Formerly known as Community Food Centres Canada, Right to Food grew out of the idea that food can be a powerful tool for change, and that when you create spaces where people come together around food, it’s possible to transform lives and communities. Over the years we’ve evolved into a national leader in the movement for good food for all.
Back in the late 1990s, Nick Saul and a small team at Stop 103, a food bank in Toronto’s Davenport West neighbourhood, began to experiment with an alternative approach to the emergency food model. Instead of long lines, they created welcoming spaces. Instead of overripe vegetables and dented cans, they offered healthy and delicious food served at communal tables. By the mid-2000s, Saul had joined forces with Kathryn Scharf and together with their team they built The Stop Community Food Centre, a visionary community-based organization focused on growing, cooking, sharing and advocating for good food. When people from across the country and around the world started reaching out to learn how they could similarly reimagine their organizations, the idea to scale the Community Food Centre model in towns and cities across Canada took root.
Kathryn Scharf and Nick Saul co-author In Every Community a Place for Food: The Role of the Community Food Centre in Building a Local, Sustainable, and Just Food System, with Dr. Charles Levkoe, funded by the Metcalf Foundation.
The paper explores how the Community Food Centre (CFC) model developed at The Stop in Toronto could be expanded to other communities.
Two pilot sites are set up at The Local CFC in Stratford and The Table CFC in Perth, Ontario to bring the CFC model to other communities.
Community Food Centres Canada launches. Read about it in this Toronto Star article.
Nick Saul and Andrea Curtis write a book about The Stop’s transformation. The Stop: How the Fight for Good Food Transformed a Community and Inspired a Movement is a national bestseller and received several nominations and accolades including a Taste Canada Food Writing Award and a Heritage Toronto Award of Merit. It was also a finalist for the Ontario Library Association’s Evergreen Award and was nominated for the Toronto Book Award. Read the book.
Two new CFCs open, including NorWest Co-op CFC in Winnipeg, Manitoba, bringing the number of CFCs to five.
The Good Food Organization community is launched to share knowledge and resources, and build capacity in the community food sector.
Igniting innovation: Our first health-focused program, FoodFit, launches with support from the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Three new CFCs open: The North Grove CFC in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Hamilton CFC in Hamilton, Ontario, and The Alex CFC in Calgary, Alberta.
Good food gathering: The first Food Summit is held, the first conference of its kind, bringing together community food organizations from across Canada.
The Depot CFC launches in Montreal, Quebec—the first in Quebec—and the Natoaganeg CFC opens, making it the first Indigenous-led CFC.
An RX for healthy eating: Our second health-focused project program, Market Greens, launches.
Mount Paul CFC and Nelson CFC launch in British Columbia, bringing the total number of CFCs to 12.
Qajuqturvik CFC becomes the first CFC in the northern territory of Nunavut.
Launch of the Good Fund Access Fund, which raised and granted more than $50M to support local communities through the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Turnor Lake & Birch Narrows CFC launches—the first in Saskatchewan.
A record intake of new Good Food Organizations sees the program triple in size.
Carrefour Solidaire CFC and Roots CFC launch, bringing the total to 15 CFCs from coast to coast to coast.
Promoting mental health through food: Mind Your Food launches.
Fighting for the right to food: CFCC’s new Poverty Action Unit is created.
CFCC changes its name to Right To Food.
We welcome Hope House Guelph Community Food Centre, Líl̓wat Community Food Centre, and we open the doors to Sumac Community Food Centre on Gerrard Street East in Toronto, also the location of our new national office.
