Maple Leaf Food’s latest spot, “Every kid deserves to eat like a kid,” hopes to educate families about the issue of food insecurity in Canada.

The campaign is informed by the sobering statistic that one in four kids in the country deal with food insecurity. Parents usually make sacrifices to ensure their kids are eating tasty – and healthy – meals. But for parents with picky eaters, this problem can become an even more daunting challenge.

This was the main insight Maple Leaf Foods used to both educate families about the issue and highlight the work Maple Leaf Foods is doing through its Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security to help reduce the problem by 50% by the year 2030.

Sarah Stern, executive director of the Centre, tells strategy that previous brand campaigns have looked at relatable moments for Maple Leaf brand supporters, like its “Natural Negotiators” campaign, which focused on children as being experts at meal-time negotiations.

“With this campaign, it felt in the same spirit, featuring children and real, meal time truths from parents in Canada, but with a heart-wrenching twist,” Stern says. “This spot is being promoted by the Maple Leaf brand itself in an effort to help create even more awareness among everyday consumers about the importance of solving this growing and increasingly urgent crisis.”

The Maple Leaf Centre for Food Security is a registered charity that advocates for public policies and invests in knowledge building and programs that advance efforts to reduce food insecurity. The Centre was created in 2016 and is governed by a board of directors, including four independent experts.

The campaign was released the same day the Centre gathered more than 160 people from government, the private sector and civil society at its annual Symposium to learn from program experts, policymakers, community leaders and researchers about what’s needed to address Canada’s food insecurity crisis.

Food bank usage has surged to unprecedented levels, with one in 10 Torontonians now relying on food banks. According to a recent Feed Ontario report, more than one million people visited a food bank in the province last year.