Thousands of people rely on food banks for their daily bread, among many other staples.

But those who run food banks say bread is one thing that’s missing from the shelves lately, an item donated largely by a local grocery store.

Andrew Day works at the Brunswick Street Mission in Halifax, which runs a food bank every Thursday.

Lately, he’s noticed something missing when the weekly supplies arrive from Feed Nova Scotia.

“Over the past month or so I noticed that there was little to no bread coming in.”

No bread, for the past five weeks.

“They’re here every Thursday,” explains Day. “They’ll wait for an hour, two hours out in the sanctuary hoping to get some bread, and the first few times that I seen it happen, you could see the look on the face, like, ooh.”

Feed Nova Scotia distributes food donations from retailers and other sources to 146 food banks, shelters and meal programs throughout the province, like the Brunswick Street Mission.

In the past, a major grocery store donated most of the bread.

Feed Nova Scotia says the grocery store recently change its freshness policy.

“They are now able to sell more of their bread closer to the best before date,” says Karen Theriault of Feed Nova Scotia, “than what they had been doing before.”

That means bread stays on store shelves longer, then after that, it isn’t fresh enough to donate.

Theriault says Feed Nova Scotia has been communicating with the store for a solution.

“We want to work with our retail partners and all our donors,” says Theriault, “to make sure that we’re capturing every opportunity possible to support families that need it.”

“I’m sure there’s a massive cost attached to the amount of bread that just this place alone sees,” says Day, “let alone all of the other food banks and the amount of bread that must be going to these places must be massive, but it just hurts when it goes away.”

Because having bread on the shelves of food banks, like the Brunswick Street Mission, would offer an important comfort in a time of need, something everyone should have.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Heidi Petracek.