The Tarrant Area Food Bank is experiencing a food shortage that is affecting its 13-county service area, according to Julie Butner, TAFB president and CEO. Butner says government support has been scaled back due to Covid restrictions being lifted and financial support not stretching as far as it did in years past. Faced with empty shelves that are limiting distribution to their 450+ agency partners, TAFB is experiencing what Butner calls “A perfect storm”.
“One major reason why we are having a food shortage is that there is a 25% reduction in government-donated food,” Butner says. “About half of the food we distribute into the community comes from the government.”
Butner verified that the TAFB receives half of its food from the United States Department of Agriculture or the Texas Department of Agriculture on a regular basis. During the height of the global pandemic, both departments gave the TAFB added food support, which has recently been discontinued. This means families in need of food will only receive a portion of what they did before the end of TAFB’s last fiscal year.
To close the supply gap, the TAFB has been purchasing food at historic, yet unsustainable levels. In the meantime, the food bank is distributing less food to partner agencies and through mobile distributions. This factor is crucial, since according to Butner, hunger needs increase during the summer due to children’s lack of access to school feeding programs. On top of this seasonal increase in the demand for food, record inflation, a reduction in SNAP benefits and loss of coverage in Medicaid benefits due to the end of government pandemic assistance programs have put a strain on consumers across the country.
“The government provided a great deal of support during the past three years, and now that Covid is gone, the government is now saying it will no longer provide that support,” she says.
The TAFB anticipated this reduction in support last year, budgeting $5 million to spread out over time and buy food, Butner continued. However, she verifies that all of that money was spent in the first 90 days of the fiscal year, which just got the food bank through the holiday season.
“The government pulled back its Covid support without recognizing people who are facing financial difficulty are still in the same boat because of inflation,” Butner says. “Food inflation is now in the double digits at 17 percent year over year, and that’s the highest level of food inflation this country has ever experienced in our history — ever.”
This issue is compiled by the fact that grocery prices are 12 to 17 percent higher than in the previous year, with the average hourly wage for many employees staying the same.
“Our shelves in the distribution center at the Tarrant Area Food Bank are not stacked where they should be at this time of the year,” Butner says. “We need support now more than ever.”
Anyone wishing to help the TAFB with a donation go to: http://tafb.org/donate/