As families deal with rising grocery costs, local food assistance programs have been affected by high prices.
The nation's food banks are struggling with inflation because of the global supply chain crisis. Volunteers will distribute more than 1 million pounds of food per week in November to meet the growing need, according to the Greater Cleveland Food Bank.
They are upon and we gear up for the holidays months in advance. The need for emergency food has never been higher than in the past, according to Kristin Warzocha, the organization's president and CEO.
Warzocha explained that prices for even the most essential foods have gone up.
The cost of each turkey is up 20% this year, and we ordered six truckloads of turkeys this year. Warzocha said that peanut butter, a staple for families across the community and a staple that we distribute at the food banks, is up 40%. We had orders that were canceled at the last minute, and we had orders that were bought out of us from someone paying more. The cost to store and transport food has increased, according to Brian Greene, president and CEO of the Houston Food Bank.
It isn't just the food, we go through thousands of boxes a week and those costs have gone up significantly, pallets have doubled, and just the equipment we use has been harder to get and it's more expensive, Green said.
According to Feeding America, there are more than 200 food banks across the country, and as many as 42 million people, including 13 million children, could face food insecurity in the US by the year 2021, according to Feeding America.
Food banks across the country have had to adapt to meet the demand.
Catherine Shick, a spokesman for FeedMore Western New York said that it could be working with brand substitutions, working with our vendors to alter delivery times. We are trying to be as flexible as possible in order to maximize cost savings. Volunteers are encouraged to pitch in as they did before the Pandemic, according to Greene.
Most of our labor is done by volunteers and that is true of Feeding America food banks in general. The pandemic was a real blow to the volunteer pool, people are starting to come back and we are trying to get people to come back because we have got a lot of work to do, said Greene.
One of the best resources to find your local food bank is to look for your local food bank.