Thank you for that question, Mr. MacGregor.
As always, thank you for your passion on agriculture and food. I follow some of this closely and I know how passionate you are.
First of all, on the labour stoppage, the strike at a store in Nova Scotia, I'm not going to negotiate a collective agreement publicly here. I don't know if that's legal or not, but I'm not going to do it either way.
That's unfortunate. I think that these food price increases, which are horrific, are impacting everyone. They impact our teammates as well. I looked at our full-time teammates across the country. We have 130,000 teammates. They had, on average, 5% increases last year. For part time, it was an almost 8% increase in the last 12 months as well.
The problem with food banks is they vary. What's going on is a sad state of affairs. People are hurting more than ever due to prolonged inflation and high interest rates. We have to end this.
One of the most impactful ways we at Sobeys help is by donating food. Since May 2021, we've donated over 21 million kilograms of food, which is the equivalent of over 46 million meals, in our partnership with Second Harvest. We've supported more than 1,100 local non-profits. We offer fruit at significantly discounted prices through FoodHero. As part of The Grocery Foundation, we support the breakfast program known as Toonies for Tummies. We have partnered with Breakfast Club of Canada and Student Nutrition Ontario—