Soaring food prices spike demand at Second Harvest

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

Everyone shopping for groceries recently has experienced sticker shock.

With food prices soaring due to inflation – and with many families having little wiggle room in their checking accounts to absorb that shock – Second Harvest Food Bank is experiencing record levels of demand.

The food bank established and operated by the Archdiocese of New Orleans doesn’t have to conduct a telephone survey or convene a focus group to determine the level of need in the 23 civil parishes it serves across south Louisiana.

It has hard, cold numbers, and those numbers are not good.

“We were hoping after COVID simmered down a little bit that we’d start to see some of the rates of people needing help declining, but we aren’t seeing that because of inflation,” said Second Harvest president and CEO Natalie Jayroe. “We’re seeing the number of people we’re serving go up by 5% every single month, and we’re talking 5% of 200,000-plus people. So, it’s incredibly harmful.”

Increased need documented
Second Harvest provides food to 700 partner organizations and agencies that run local food pantries, with the idea that the pantries are geographically spread out so that they can be accessed easily by people in need.

Every partner organization files a monthly report with Second Harvest detailing the number of people who have come forward for assistance, and those numbers are up across the board, said Second Harvest chief impact officer Lindsay Hendrix.

“When the news stories started coming out that inflation had reached 9.1% in June, we certainly began seeing the impacts of that, particularly when coupled with the high gas prices,” Hendrix said. “We’re also hearing of the rising cost of rent. Just basic living expenses are making it much harder because income is staying the same. So, when living expenses are much higher, people are reaching out to food banks.”

Beyond a ‘short-term’ problem

Jayroe said the extended nature of inflation can wreak havoc on a family’s ability to meet normal expenses.

“If you think about it, families are spending their savings to make ends meet,” Jayroe said. “So, the first month it might take them $90 to fill their gas tank, and they may be able to do it. But by the second month, the third month, the fourth month – now they’re stretching their resources further and further.”

The growing problem becomes even broader, Jayroe said, when viewed from the perspective of the food bank and its expenses.

“All of our expenses are also going up,” Jayroe said. “That’s making it harder and harder for us to get the amount of food and supplies that we need to take care of families who are facing inflation. Our transportation bills are up 50%, as are our power bills – just what everyone else is experiencing in their home life. And, we have seven trucks in the shop that we can’t get parts for because of supply-chain issues. This impacts us on both ends.”

Grocery stores that normally donate excess food and supplies to Second Harvest are experiencing supply chain shortages of their own, and Jayroe said individual donations are down, probably because many people have had to adjust their purchases of extra food because of limitations of their own budgets.

“Grocery stores are finding ways to make sure they don’t have as much to donate to us because everybody is going through this crunch with at least a 10% increase in food costs,” Jayroe said. “We’re very, very worried about food insecurity.”

Feeding America – the umbrella organization over Second Harvest – tracks the average cost per meal in all 50 states.

Demand up across the board

Virtually all of Second Harvest’s partner agencies have requested increases in food supplies to distribute.

“Our agencies are requesting additional food,” Hendrix said. “A lot of the way we distribute is based on the need in the community, so we get to see those patterns. There are people who are not regulars coming to the food bank – who don’t need emergency food assistance on a regular basis – who are showing up because they’ve just been squeezed.”

Persons in need of emergency food assistance should go first to the Second Harvest website – www.no-hunger.org – so that they can be directed to the food pantry nearest to them. Since some of the donations from grocery stores are down right now, most of the food assistance is coming from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The variety is a little low, but you can expect to find peanut butter, rice, beans, pasta and some frozen protein, some fresh produce and dairy,” Hendrix said. “We really try to get the staples that we know will last a family and are generally well-loved by the community.”

Hendrix said donations of food, money or volunteer help are greatly welcomed.

“Everything we do is because somebody donated money, food or their time,” Hendrix said. “About 80% of all our funding is from private sources. Everything we do – from the lights to the trucks to the expense of fuel – is because somebody donated to us. We completely rely on the generosity of donors, who have been very, very generous.”

For more information on Second Harvest Food bank, go to www.no-hunger.org.

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