Toronto’s Daily Bread Food Bank is cutting ties with one of its largest member agencies after the charity uncovered discrepancies with invoices Feed Scarborough provided to support grant funding and reported those and other financial management concerns to police.
Daily Bread’s board of directors decided not to renew Feed Scarborough’s membership agreement last week, so it will no longer receive food deliveries or funding from Daily Bread after its membership expires at the end of this month.
The charity’s CEO Neil Hetherington says Daily Bread had previously paused funding to Feed Scarborough while it investigated financial irregularities, but continued providing the organization with food so residents of south Scarborough wouldn’t be impacted.
“The concerns that we had were, were those funds directed towards the charitable purposes that they were intended to go to?” said Hetherington in an interview.
“Ultimately it boils down to making sure that every single dollar is spent on the food that Toronto needs … if there is a dollar that is not used towards those charitable purposes, that’s a meal.”
Feed Scarborough has received millions of dollars’ worth of food from Daily Bread each year as one its largest member agencies and was provided $620,000 in grant funding for operations and capacity building projects from 2021-23, according to Daily Bread’s police report.
CBC News reviewed that report along with corresponding invoices, corporation records, property records and emails, which together raise a number of concerns about Feed Scarborough’s financial spending and management.
Those issues include $18,000 of invoices Feed Scarborough provided Daily Bread to support grant funding which the vendor has no record of, more than $100,000 of expense claims paid to then-board chair, now CEO, Suman Roy that were self-approved, and using grant money to buy $10,000 worth of food from Roy’s own company.
None of those allegations have been tested in court and no criminal charges have been laid.
“If those financial irregularities prove to be true, obviously there is a great sense of betrayal of trust,” Hetherington said.
CEO denies wrongdoing
In a statement, Roy — who founded Feed Scarborough in 2018 — wouldn’t address those allegations in detail, citing a third-party investigation his charity commissioned for which it has not yet received the final report.
“I am confident that with the conclusion of this investigation all allegations will be proven unfounded,” said Roy, in his statement.
“I adamantly deny that any Daily Bread dollars were spent with any vendors with conflict of interest, related to me, any Feed Scarborough staff and Board Members or with vendors offering services that were not received.”
In its police report, Daily Bread said Feed Scarborough assured the charity it would provide documentation in response to the irregularities, but months later denied access to those records.
Toronto police confirmed they received a report from Daily Bread concerning Feed Scarborough in November 2025 and that their Financial Crimes Unit is investigating.
Roy denied that Feed Scarborough has failed to provide documentation to Daily Bread, but instead told CBC Toronto that documentation was supposed to be provided by the end of this month before the current members agreement expired. He says Feed Scarborough has not been contacted by police, but will co-operate fully with any Toronto police investigation.
“I am disappointed that the Daily Bread has chosen to withdraw its services,” said Roy, who also sits on Toronto’s board of health.
“Feed Scarborough has continued to act in good faith throughout our relationship with the Daily Bread as a member agency. All food and funds raised were used for charitable purposes supporting our programs and the community.”
Feed Scarborough currently operates four in-person food banks and one online food bank in Scarborough, alongside other programs, according to its website. When asked how the Daily Bread decision will impact Feed Scarborough’s operations Roy said the charity will maintain at least one independent food bank “if the community has a need and we are able to do so.”
In a separate statement, Clifford Gomes, chair of Feed Scarborough’s board of directors, said the charity’s emergency food programming will continue and that Feed Scarborough has been “actively addressing Daily Bread’s accusations which still at the present time remain unfounded pending investigation.”
No record of invoices
In February 2025, Daily Bread management contacted one of Feed Scarborough’s vendors and uncovered a “major discrepancy in financial reporting,” according to the charity’s police report.
Daily Bread asked the vendor for all invoices it had sent to Feed Scarborough. The vendor provided the charity with a single invoice for about $220 in food from 2024 and said they’d had no other dealings with Feed Scarborough.
The vendor’s response brings into question more than $18,000 worth of invoices purportedly issued by it — which Feed Scarborough provided to Daily Bread in support of grant spending. One of the three invoices the vendor had no record of was dated two months before the vendor’s company was incorporated, according to the police report and other records.
In his statement, Roy denied any Daily Bread funds were spent with vendors offering services that were not received.
Another $10,000 invoice for emergency food hampers provided to Daily Bread in support of grant spending was paid to a vendor called Gourmet Alchemy in 2023. The accounting firm Daily Bread hired to conduct a forensic audit of Feed Scarborough discovered that Roy was the sole director of the company and had incorporated Gourmet Alchemy a month before the date of the invoice.
The main business address listed on the vendor’s corporation record is a residential property owned by the charity’s CEO and the address listed on Gourmet Alchemy’s invoice is a property owned by Roy’s relatives, according to the police report. Roy had also previously incorporated another business with a very similar name in 2013.
Despite this seeming related-party transaction in 2023, Gomes, the charity’s board chair, confirmed that all of Feed Scarborough’s vendors were at arm’s length to those involved with the organization in any official capacity in an October 2024 email to Daily Bread.
Gomes did not address questions about Daily Bread’s allegations in his statement to CBC News. In his own statement, Roy denied any funds from Daily Bread were spent with vendors who had a conflict of interest related to him or anyone else working at the charity.
Daily Bread’s police report also includes details on 11 expense reports for gift cards, food and rent Roy was reimbursed more than $111,000 for between December 2021 and March 2023.
Roy signed the cheques, which were payable to himself, and all but two of the claims were paid out when Roy was the board chair, and were not approved by a third party board member, according to the police report. The two other expense reports were paid out when Roy was the CEO of the charity and his wife was chair of the board of directors.
Feed Scarborough told Daily Bread that Roy made those rent payments and paid for other large expenses because of cash flow issues, according to the police report, but at the time of most of these payments (in March 2022) charity return records show Feed Scarborough had more than a million dollars in the bank.
Statements from Roy and Gomes did not address questions provided about these expenses.
Soso World Ministries’ food banks will take over distribution of the food Daily Bread provides to Feed Scarborough for the area’s residents in February. It currently operates three major food banks and 13 pantry programs throughout Scarborough.
Founder and director Garth Soso was disappointed to hear about the concerns regarding Feed Scarborough, both for that charity’s sake and that of other food banks.
“It sheds a negative light on all food banks in terms of, there’s going to be eyes on I think all organizations. So we have to make sure that we’re doing what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said.
“The good thing is that we’re positioned to be able to receive all of Feed Scarborough’s clients in all of our programs.”
