In early 2022, Mid-Ohio Food Collective leaders looked at their warehouse and saw shelves filled to only 32% capacity, down from the 105% peak after the COVID-19 pandemic struck in 2020.
Today, it’s back up to 62% capacity, but MOFC and other food banks across the country have had to stretch their resources with greater reliance on federal, state and local governments as well as help from partner organizations to meet the increased need also revealed in the 2.6% boost in food insecure households this year.
“Food banks are in an unprecedented historic moment,” Vince Hall, Feeding America's chief government relations officer, told Agri-Pulse. “We’ve never had record low unemployment and record high demand at food distribution; those two have never gone that opposite direction. We are seeing higher distribution requirements now than we did at the peak of the pandemic because a lot of those federal COVID-based programs faded away.”
Mike Hochron, MOFC senior vice president of communications, explained many pandemic-era benefits helped families during the early days of COVID including economic stimulus payments, the child care tax credit and enhanced Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) allotments. As federal aid disappeared, demand for food bank assistance increased.
“We know from prior experience that recovery from a deep economic shock can take anywhere from eight to 10 years, and we'd hoped the resources would follow a similar timeline,” Hochron said. Instead, many food banks across the country have mostly depleted available assets after just three years.
As the largest food bank in Ohio and one of the five biggest in the nation, MOFC helps feed more than 500,000 Ohioans each year. In the week leading up to Thanksgiving this year, demand was the highest in MOFC’s 43-year history.
“We see more people than ever who are making the courageous choice to ask for food, to ask for help, because food is the only variable part of their budget,” Hochron said. “You can’t pay half the rent. You can’t pay half the car bill. You can’t negotiate on the price of gas, heat, utilities or child care.”
MOFC President Matt Habash said he anticipates continued high demand with no end in sight for soaring housing costs. “Everybody says housing is a long-game solution, and that one drives everything else” in many household budgets, he said.
Jada Hoerr, chief resource officer for the Midwest Food Bank based in Normal, Illinois, said she’s seen an average 25% increase in those served across their 2,500 nonprofit local partners. One out of six people turned to the charitable food sector for help in 2022. The most recent Feeding America survey shows around 90% of responding food banks report demand for food assistance increased or stayed the same in October 2023 compared to September 2023.
High grocery prices paired with donor fatigue
As food banks are asked to do more, they confront donor fatigue and increased grocery costs.
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According to a survey by Divert — a company which, since 2018, has helped grocery retail chains to facilitate donation of 12.5 million pounds of food — people expect to donate less this year. Nearly half the survey's respondents said they are more likely to donate to food banks during the holiday season compared to other times of the year, but only 25% are more likely to donate as much during this year’s holiday as years past, in large part because of increased grocery costs.
To close out the year, MOFC plans to hold its annual Double Your Donation Day on Dec. 13 to raise millions of dollars to contribute to the nearly $27 million it brings in each year.
MOFC bu
ys 24% of its food needs, mostly produce. An estimated 49% of its food comes from donations, the rest from government assistance such as the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and state and local funds.
American Rescue Plan funds, a dedicated allocation from the state of Ohio, and TEFAP funds from USDA helped MOFC rebuild its inventories in 2022.
Higher TEFAP funding sought
Through TEFAP, the USDA buys healthy foods — fruits, vegetables and other staples — from domestic producers. Feeding America’s Hall said TEFAP, which was started during the Reagan administration, was used by the Trump administration in its COVID response but dialed back by 48% over the next two years.
“Fortunately, Secretary Tom Vilsack has been able to make some [Commodity Credit Corporation] investments, which has gone a long way toward helping food banks meet this historic moment,” Hochron said of TEFAP funding.
Feeding America advocates a doubling of TEFAP food purchases in the next farm bill to $500 million annually. It is also seeking $200 million per year in funding for TEFAP storage and distribution and reauthorizing $15 million for TEFAP infrastructure grants.
Funding for TEFAP “is not a lot of money in the grand scheme of a trillion-dollar farm bill,” Hall said. “But it is massively effective in helping food banks be able to serve particularly rural communities, but indeed all communities.”
Midwest Food Bank does not receive TEFAP assistance but saw great value in the Farmers to Families Food Box program, which distributed prepackaged boxes of food early in the pandemic. “We would advocate the opportunity to have something similar to that again,” Hoerr said.
Anti-hunger programs must work together to reduce food insecurity, advocates said.
Hochron also noted discussions about SNAP cuts should recognize one meal from a food bank is supplemented with nine meals from SNAP.
“SNAP is the front line,” Hochron said, and food banks could not handle the transition to solely providing the needed food assistance required today.
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