{"id":580751,"date":"2026-04-04T01:49:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:49:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/580751\/"},"modified":"2026-04-04T01:49:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-04T01:49:11","slug":"fuel-costs-impacting-more-b-c-services-including-food-banks-local-grocers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/580751\/","title":{"rendered":"Fuel costs impacting more B.C. services, including food banks, local grocers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is no secret that high <a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/tag\/gas-prices\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">gas prices<\/a> are affecting British Columbians and Canadians, but the impact is also affecting organizations.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\u201cStarting to get anecdotal data, just when we\u2019re comparing sort of the previous year and that sort of thing, where there\u2019s more people again coming to the food bank,\u201d Kim Savage, the Surrey Food Bank executive director, said.<\/p>\n<p>Savage said that for many people, there is no room left in their budgets and higher gas prices are making it more expensive to get around, while driving up the price of food as those costs move through the supply chain.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSort of a one-two punch,\u201d Savage said.<\/p>\n<p>That same pressure is showing up at the Union Gospel Mission, with staff saying they are seeing more people who need emergency support.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWith the major increase in the cost of gas, we\u2019ve actually noticed an uptick in folks trying to access the emergency hamper for the first time and also trying to access support services after cheque week,\u201d Nicole Mucci with the Union Gospel Mission said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'Union calls for more remote work due to gas prices'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/web_still_6p_bcgeu_fuel_crisis.png\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1:53<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUnion calls for more remote work due to gas prices\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Economy<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>More pressure may still be coming.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1767930311_275_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won't miss a trending story.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet breaking National news<\/p>\n<p>Get breaking Canada news delivered to your inbox as it happens so you won&#8217;t miss a trending story.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers says suppliers are already warning stores of price hikes and fuel surcharges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you\u2019re an independent grocer on tight margins of two per cent, that\u2019s not a figure I plucked out of thin air, it\u2019s Stats Can and you\u2019re faced with double-digit price increases from your suppliers, you have to pass those on,\u201d Gary Sands with the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers, said.<\/p>\n<p>All of it is adding up for households already stretched.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>The Surrey Food Bank says demand is up 50 per cent from just two years ago and it is still rising.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe constant struggle with people\u2019s pocketbooks in affordability, lagging economy, all of those sorts of things,\u201d Savage said.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is no secret that high gas prices are affecting British Columbians and Canadians, but the impact is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":580752,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[222370,45,49,48,46,6662],"class_list":{"0":"post-580751","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-bc-fuel-prices","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-ca","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-economy","13":"tag-gas-prices"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=580751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/580751\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=580751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=580751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=580751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}