Prince Edward Island
A universally accessible, pay-what-you-can lunch program available to every PEI student K-12, run by the independent non-profit PEI School Food Program Inc.
Official program
PEI School Food Program
PEI School Food Program Inc. has run the program since it transitioned out of direct Public Schools Branch management on July 1, 2021, covering all Public Schools Branch schools plus the two French-language schools. PEI was the first Canadian jurisdiction to set an explicit legislated target for reducing child food insecurity.
How it works
Available to all Island students K-12 with no application or income test. Meals follow a three-week rotating menu with vegetarian and gluten-friendly options, offered five days a week. Families pay full price, a reduced amount, or nothing, ordering mainly through the BON APPÉTIT app (in-person ordering is also available).
Funded by a mix of the Government of Prince Edward Island, Breakfast Club of Canada, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and local business/credit union sponsors. For 2025-26 and 2026-27, the province committed an additional $2,233,703/year to expand lunch funding and grow breakfast/snack programming, targeting roughly 81,500 additional meals served.
Benefits for kids
PEI's province-wide, pay-what-you-can, universal design was followed by the sharpest reported drop in child food insecurity of any Atlantic province between 2022 and 2023 — a strong association, though not a formally proven causal link, between the program's scale-up and measured improvements in child food security.
Local facts
- In 2022, 41% of PEI children lived in households struggling to afford food — the worst rate in the country that year. (Source: CBC News, citing Statistics Canada)
- By 2023, PEI's child food-insecurity rate improved to 31.2% and the overall provincial rate fell to 24.6% — the lowest in Atlantic Canada that year. (Source: PROOF, University of Toronto)