Fresh City farms - Food Availability in the City of Toronto: Assessing food availability and food deserts in the City of Toronto with respect to Fresh City Farm’s current customers

Food security is a global problem that can be solved at the local level. Urbanized areas, such as the City of Toronto, depend heavily on food imports, from within and outside of the country. Without realizing it, we spend much of our efforts and energy getting the food into the city, when we could be spending that effort growing the food within the city. Organizations and businesses, such as Fresh City farms take advantage of this opportunity by growing organic food, in city spaces, and delivering it to the customers or having them pick up their food at selected locations. In this project we looked at the current customers of Fresh City Farms with respects to the current demographics of the City of Toronto. We found that most of the customers live in downtown Toronto which is characterized by a low median age (27-36), low average household size (1.4 - 2.2 persons per household), highly populated (between 6,684 and 60,915 persons per square kilometer) and a mix of median income level ranging anywhere from $23,000 to $239,000. We also studied food availability in Toronto by examining the existing major supermarket chains, the year-round and seasonal farmers’ markets, and the community gardens. We concluded that there was a lack of food availability in areas not resided by Fresh City Farm customers. In other words, there exists a lack of fresh food availability in North Etobicoke and East Scarborough. These areas are known as “food deserts”. Our recommendation is that Fresh City Farms should consider targeting these areas for new potential customers.