(Bloomberg) -- In Omaha, the Food Bank for the Heartland is having to slash its food-spending budget, resulting in about 2 million fewer pounds of food for the people in the 93 counties it serves. The Open Door pantry in Eagan, Minnesota, is handing out 4 pounds less per person, on average. And for the first time in its 35-year history, the West Alabama Food Bank is having to cap the amount of food it gives out.
Food banks and pantries across the U.S. are stretched so thin by soaring operating costs that they're having to ration what goes out to feed the nation's hungry.
At the West Alabama Food Bank, pallets that were overflowing with donations just a few months ago are now bare at its warehouse in Northport. Shipments of fresh pears, cheese and milk are waiting for pickup at a distribution facility in Montgomery, roughly 100 miles away. But Executive Director Jean Rykaczewski can't afford to retrieve them because a drive that used to cost $450 now is as much as $1,200 thanks to sky-high fuel prices.
Rykaczewski is seeing rising prices for everything: food costs have jumped, gasoline is higher and her most recent power bill was up $500 from the previous month.
“We're not even in the summertime when it's 100 degrees in the South, and our freezers and coolers are running continuously,” she said. “That worries me.”
The fastest rate of U.S. inflation in 40 years is hitting companies across the board, but its toll on food banks is unique. The centers are usually a refuge for families who can't afford to get dinner on the table. That service is in high demand as Americans deal with soaring costs for gasoline, utilities and rent, leaving less money left over for groceries. But instead of being able to fill the need, budget constraints mean that food banks and pantries are having to pull back just at a time when hunger is increasing.
“This hurts people living paycheck to paycheck, who barely squeak by,” Rykaczewski said. “It's just like a big tornado. It's just spinning, and there's no way out.”
The U.S. has seen rising levels of hunger since the start of the pandemic. Temporary federal aid, like the expanded child tax credit, had brought some relief, but many of those programs have expired. Now, food prices are also soaring — making it even harder for lower-income families to afford groceries. Some food banks are reporting that demand is back to levels seen in the first half of 2020, when people waited in lines that formed at dawn and stretched for blocks.
More than one-third of U.S. households reported that they had difficulty paying for normal expenses in the prior seven days, with the share rising in both wealthy and poorer states, according to the latest survey by the U.S. Census Bureau.
FoodFinder, a food pantry locator app, averaged 3,000 users a day in the first three months of 2022, about five times higher than the average of 587 users a year earlier.
“We were expecting fewer people on average per day in 2022 because the pandemic is improving, but we've seen no slowing down in sight,” said Jack Griffin, chief executive officer.
While many food banks rely on donated goods, they often have to also stretch their operating budgets for purchases to supplement those contributions.
Feeding America, which operates a nationwide network of 200 food banks and 60,000 other food programs and pantries, has asked Congress for $900 million more in funding for food purchases. The group is expecting its food costs to jump 40% in the fiscal year that ends in June from a year earlier. The nonprofit is also moving twice as many truckloads of food compared with pre-pandemic levels, and it's costing more to move those supplies, with transportation costs up 20% from the prior year.
“Our food banks and partners are resilient and are doing everything they can to continue to provide nutritious food to our neighbors in need, but we cannot sustain this level of response without the continued support from the public and private sector,” Erika Thiem, Feeding America's chief supply chain officer, said in an emailed response to questions from Bloomberg News.
The Open Door pantry in Minnesota gets the bulk of its supplies through food rescue — donations of leftover items from retail partners like grocery stores. But with higher food prices, those retailers are buying less, making for fewer contributions. The organization has seen a 60% drop in meat supplies coming in via food rescue and it's also having to take more food that's nearing the end of its shelf life, especially for protein and eggs.
“We see a little bit of frustration among our clients with the lack of supply that we're able to offer,” said Jason Viana, the executive director. “They feel at their wits' end. They need to ask for help, and then that help ends up not being enough. That's a hard truth we have to accept.”
Higher fuel prices are hitting groups that deliver meals to the elderly and other vulnerable populations. Earlier this month, the average retail gasoline price in the U.S. climbed to a record high above $4 a gallon.
In Newport News, Virginia, Peninsula Agency on Aging drops meals off to more than 1,000 seniors and the homebound each day. The group has been lucky enough to not need to cut back on its services so far, but it's careful to keep delivery routes to under one hour and less than 16 miles. That helps to stretch its $42,000 fuel budget.
“We did not and could not have planned for such unprecedented increases,” said Gerald Patesel, vice president of community services.
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As inflation squeezes budgets, many food banks are also seeing a drop-off in donations.
That's the case for the The Okra Project, which specializes in serving the Black transgender community in New York. The organization is largely driven by small, individual contributions. Since the start of 2022, financial donations have fallen 40%, said Dominique Morgan, the group's executive director.
“Higher prices are forcing the average person to choose between making the donation they used to make and holding that dollar for themselves,” she said.
That leaves Morgan having to make hard choices about how to stretch the budget to meet the needs of a population that's already more vulnerable. About 25% of transgender adults and 36% of trans people of color reported experiencing food insecurity compared with 8% of cisgender adults, a 2021 analysis of census data from the Williams Institute at UCLA found.
“Who did I have to say no to today? That keeps me up at night,” Morgan said.
When the pandemic first hit in 2020, the West Alabama Food Bank saw such a big influx for donations that it decided to spend $3.2 million on a new 96,000 square-foot building, almost double its current size, and another $1.8 million to build a cooler and freezer on the premises. The group is scheduled to move to the upgraded location next year. But as inventory levels decline, and the organization isn't able to stretch its dollars as far, Rykaczewski is second-guessing the investment.
“My concern is: Oh, my goodness, did I just double the space we have, and are we now not going to need it? Is it going to be sitting half empty?” she said.
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