Editor’s note: While both the Cortes and Quadra Island Food Banks recently stated the local situation is under control, demand is expected to increase this fall.

By Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Mounds of mangoes and pallets of peanut butter sit on a monochrome concrete floor.

They’re islands of sustenance, dwarfed in the Greater Vancouver Food Bank’s cavernous warehouse — and a fraction of the roughly 40,800 kilograms of food that pass through the distribution center each week, explained the organization’s CEO, David Long.