California, Nov 10 (BUS): US food banks already dealing with increased demand from families marginalized by the pandemic now face a new challenge – soaring food prices and supply chain issues plaguing the country.
Higher costs and limited availability mean some families may be getting smaller portions or alternatives to staples like peanut butter, which cost nearly twice as much as they did a year ago, according to the Associated Press.
“What happens when food prices go up is that the food insecurity of those who have it gets worse,” said Katie Fitzgerald, director of operations for Feeding America, a nonprofit that coordinates the efforts of more than 200 food banks across the country.
She said that food banks that have expanded to meet the unprecedented demand caused by the pandemic will not be able to absorb forever food costs that are two to three times more than they were before.
Supply chain disruptions, inventory declines and labor shortages have increased the costs of the charities on which tens of millions of people in the United States depend for nutrition. Transporting donated food is more expensive because transport costs are high, and bottlenecks in factories and ports make it difficult to get goods of all kinds.
If a food bank had to trade in smaller sizes of canned tuna or make substitutions in order to increase its dollars, it’s like adding an “insult to injury” to an uncertain family, Fitzgerald said.
In the expensive San Francisco Bay Area, the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Oakland spends an additional $60,000 per month on food. Along with increased demand, Michael Altvist, director of community engagement at the Auckland Food Bank, said that it was now disbursing $1 million per month to distribute 4.5 million pounds (2 million kilograms) of food.
In the pre-pandemic era, it was spending a quarter of the money on 2.5 million pounds (1.2 million kilograms) of food.
Altfest said the cost of canned green beans and peaches went up about 9% for them. The proportion of canned tuna and frozen tilapia is more than 6%; The case for 5-pound frozen chicken for holiday tables increased 13%. The price of dry oatmeal increased by 17%.
On Wednesdays, hundreds of people line up outside a church in East Auckland to serve the weekly food. Jason Bautista, the charity’s event manager, said Shiloh Mercy House feeds about 300 families in those days, well below the 1,100 it fed at the height of the pandemic. But he still sees new people every week.
“And a lot of people are just saying they can’t buy food,” he said. “I mean they have the money to buy certain things, but that just doesn’t extend.”
Families can also use Shiloh’s local community market, which opened in May. Refrigerators hold cartons of milk and eggs while bags of hamburger bread and crispy French toast lie on the shelves.
Auckland resident Sonia Logan Perez, 45, picked up chicken, celery, bread and potatoes — enough to complement the Thanksgiving meal for herself, her 3-year-old daughter, and her 18-year-old son. The state of California pays her to take care of her daughter Melanie, who has special needs, but that’s not enough with the $2,200 monthly rent and the cost of milk, citrus, spinach and chicken being too high.
“That’s great for me because I’m going to save a lot of money,” she said, adding that the holiday season is tough with Christmas games for kids.
It’s not clear to what extent other concurrent government assistance, including California’s expanded free school lunch program and increased benefits for people in the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will offset higher food prices. An analysis by the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. found that while most households are expected to get the most benefits from groceries, there is still a gap in 21% of rural and urban counties in the United States.
Brian Nichols, Vice President of Sales for Transnational Foods Inc. , which serves more than 100 food banks associated with Feeding America, has canned foods from Asia — such as fruit cocktail, pears and oranges — stuck abroad due to a lack of shipping container space.
Supply issues appear to be improving and prices are stabilizing, but he expects costs to remain high after many people are out of the shipping business during the pandemic. “The average cost of a container coming from Asia before COVID is about $4,000. Today, that same container is worth about $18,000.
At the Care and Share Food Bank of Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs, CEO Lynne Telford says the cost of a truckload of peanut butter — 40,000 pounds (18,100 kilograms) — rose 80% from June 2019 to $51,000 in August. The price of macaroni and cheese increased by 19% compared to last year, and the cost of wholesale ground beef increased by 5% in three months. They are spending more money on food to make up for the drop in donations and there is little to choose from.
The upcoming holidays worry her. For one thing, the donation cost to buy a frozen turkey has increased from $10 to $15 per bird.
“The other thing is we don’t get enough holiday food, like stuffing and cranberry sauce. Tilford, whose food bank fed more than 200,000 people last year and distributed 25 million pounds (11.3 million kilograms) of food, said: So we have to supplement with other types of food, which, you know, make us sad.
The Alameda County Community Food Bank says it’s ready for Thanksgiving, with cases of canned cranberries and boxes of mashed potatoes among the stacked items in its expanded warehouse. Food Resources Director Wilkin Lowe ordered eight trucks loaded with five pounds of frozen chicken — which translates to more than 60,000 birds — to donate for free, as well as turkey halves available at cost.
So Martha Hassan is grateful.
Thanksgiving is going to be as expensive, the turkey won’t cost as much as it was, Hassall said as she feasts on broccoli and onions on behalf of the American Indian Council for the Bay Area. “And they don’t distribute turkeys. So thank God they are distributing chickens.”
FKN