People across Canada right now are feeling the squeeze: grocery prices keep climbing, rent keeps going up, and somehow many still need to decide whether to pay the bills or feed their family.
For hundreds of families in Regina, that painful choice may have just gotten a little less brutal.
On August 15, 2024, the doors opened at the Regina Food Bank’s brand-new grocery-style food hub: the BMO Asahtowikamik Community Food Hub. Located at 1881 Broad Street, downtown Regina, SK S4P 1V9, this is widely called the first full-scale free grocery store of its kind in Canada.
The name “Asahtowikamik” means “feeding lodge” in Cree, a reminder that this isn’t charity theatre. It’s about community, about sharing, about care.
Inside, you won’t see cardboard boxes, or one-size-fits-all food hampers. Instead, there are regular grocery-store-style aisles, like produce, dairy, pantry goods, the familiar hum of a market. For people under pressure from rising food costs, stepping into a place like this must feel surreal. Here, food is free. But more than that, people get to choose what goes in their cart.
For families that might otherwise skip meals or stretch one week’s groceries to two, this can be the difference between exhaustion and relief, between stress and a little breathing room.
Backed by corporate support (notably the bank BMO Financial Group), it’s presented as a new model: not just emergency food-aid, but a real response to record-breaking food insecurity and unaffordable living.
We don’t know how long the food-price inflation will last. We don’t know whether more “free grocery stores” will pop up across Canada. What we do know is this: for some families right now, the burden eased a little. Maybe enough to feed their kids, keep their dignity intact, worry a little less.
For many, stores like this make the difference between going hungry and having a meal. Between shame and safety. Between despair and hope.
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