One woman at a Southern California food bank found herself overwhelmed by bacon.
“She started crying,” said pastor Charles Campbell, who directs The Joseph Project Citywide Food Bank in Moreno Valley, California. Because of rising food prices, “she never thought she would be able to eat anything that had meat in it again.”
At food pantries across America, rising food costs are swelling the clientele and forcing organizations to employ cost-saving measures to meet the need this holiday season.
Founded in 2011 by Koinonia Evangelistic Center, a 50-member nondenominational church outside San Bernardino, California, The Joseph Project is named after the biblical leader who managed Egyptian food distribution during a famine.
The Joseph Project went from giving out food to 1,000 families a week before the COVID-19 pandemic to 2,000 per week last year and now 3,000 per week.
“We just believe God every week for the money that we need to buy the food,” Campbell said.
Nearly half of congregations participate in some kind of food distribution program, according to researchers. The USDA reports that faith-based organizations run about two-thirds of community food kitchens and pantries in the US, as well as 9 percent of the country’s food banks.
Food prices in America have increased 28 percent since 2019, outpacing overall inflation over the same period. Among the factors driving higher food prices are supply-chain disruptions and rising costs of labor, production, and fuel for food producers. Amid such volatile conditions, food companies also have sought to increase profitability.
Food inflation has slowed over the past year to 2.3 percent, but the cumulative impact of food price spikes is unrelenting for families on the edge of poverty. More than 13 percent of US households—nearly 115 million people—were food insecure last year, according to the USDA.
“I can go to the grocery store, and I can fuss at my wife that I’ve got to pay $2 for a dozen eggs when I used to pay 88 cents for them,” said Kent Eikenberry, president and CEO of the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank in Lowell, Arkansas.
“But I can afford it. For those people who are right there on the edge—who make too much money to get government subsidies but not enough money to survive—that cost of food is paramount. It pushes them into the charitable food system.”
The financial pinch has grown the number of families seeking help in Northwest Arkansas. This year, the Northwest Arkansas Food Bank anticipates distributing more than 15 million pounds of food. That’s up from 14.5 million pounds last year and 8.5 million in 2018. The food bank distributes food through approximately 115 partner organizations, nearly 90 percent of which are faith-based.
Nationwide, the number of people seeking food assistance through private food distribution programs topped out at an estimated 60 million in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. The figure dropped to 53 million in 2021 and 49 million in 2022 before ticking back up to 50 million last year, according to Feeding America.
Despite recent decreases, the number of Americans seeking food assistance still is well above the pre-pandemic level of 40 million annually.
Families aren’t the only ones feeling pinched. Feeding organizations feel it too. But they opt to get creative with their resources rather than leave anyone hungry.
The Northwest Arkansas Food Bank has reduced its workforce by attrition as employees have moved on or retired. The organization also tries to control its electric and gas bills. Those measures have helped it maintain a stable food inventory.
“As an organization that spends about $3 million a year buying food, that expenditure doesn’t go as far as it used to,” Eikenberry said.
The North Reading Food Pantry in the Greater Boston area has begun to adjust the items it gives clients. Previously, the organization gave a combination of gift cards and food items to any resident or local church attendee who was seeking assistance.
But in June the food pantry reduced the number of gift cards it distributed, opting instead to buy more food in bulk. It also began recruiting more local businesses and organizations to conduct food drives.
The reshuffling of resources permitted the North Reading Food Pantry to continue serving 80–100 families per month, who receive a cumulative 18,000 pounds of food each month. The food pantry is part of North Reading’s Christian Community Service organization, which helps local churches partner with ministries and in events.
“We have seen a big uptick as of late in the size of the families that shop here,” said Teresa Sanphy, a cochair at the food panty. “Seven to ten years ago, maybe a third of our clients were senior citizens. Now we have a lot more families,” as working-age people struggle increasingly with food.
Larger food banks in Greater Boston seem to experience greater effects from food inflation, Sanphy said. A food pantry in the next municipality to the south, Reading, Massachusetts, has seen an explosion of clients and is “struggling to meet the needs of their clients as of late.”
Back in Southern California, the financial hardship felt by The Joseph Project has been exacerbated by a new state law set to take effect in 2026.
Assembly Bill 660, signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September, will institute a uniform system of freshness labeling in grocery stores across the state. The law aims to reduce food waste by letting stores keep food on their shelves longer. One consequence of the law, however, is that stores will have less food to donate to local food banks that is expired but still edible.
Many stores already have instituted the new standards, Campbell said, reducing the amount of food grocers donate to Southern California food pantries by what he estimates as 40 percent.
Most of the time, The Joseph Project still can give clients what they need. But sometimes “we have to tell them, ‘This is all we’ve got today,’” Campbell said, noting that the organization has reduced food portions in its distributions. “But what we have to give, we give it.”
The biggest payoff comes for Campbell when physical food leads to spiritual nourishment as well. An atheist came to The Joseph Project for food and was so impressed with the operation that he wanted to volunteer. It didn’t take long before he committed his life to following Christ.
“Within a couple of weeks,” Campbell said, “he was saying, ‘What must I do to be saved?’”
For the stomachs fed and the lives changed, food ministries like The Joseph Project will keep making do as food costs keep rising.
As Campbell says, “Little becomes much in the Master’s hands.”
David Roach is a freelance reporter for CT and the pastor of Shiloh Baptist Church in Saraland, Alabama.
