Nicole
If you’re like basically everybody else in America right now, you’re feeling a serious pinch at the gas pump. Fuel prices are soaring across the country, recently peaking at the highest price — upwards of $4 — since the economic recession of 2008. This steep price hike has been hugely impactful across a variety of industries, from agriculture to transportation, but rising gas prices are especially worrisome for food banks, which often rely on a vast, truck-powered distribution network to get food into the hands of those who need it most.
In Fort Worth, Texas, Tarrant Area Food Bank (TAFB) president and CEO Julie Butner has seen fuel prices rise 45 percent over the last 10 months. Before prices began to spike, TAFB spent around $15,000 every month on gasoline to fuel its fleet of 18-wheeler trucks as they delivered more than 5 million pounds of food to thousands of clients. Now, the organization is spending close to $22,000 per month on the fuel needed to service 13 counties comprising more than 6,000 square miles of Texas.
“It’s still a little too early to see the full impact of paying more to put gasoline in our vehicles, right now it’s just a couple weeks in the making,” Butner says. “But our trucks run all over our 13-county service area, and we pay gasoline prices just like everybody else does. When you see the price go up at the pump, that impacts our financial predicament.”
In the coming months, fuel price increases could have a massive impact on food banks’ ability to do their essential work. Contrary to popular belief, these organizations don’t spend the majority of their budgets on food — at TAFB, less than 1 percent of food distributed is directly purchased by the food bank itself. About half of the food it receives is donated by corporate food producers, and about half is distributed to food banks by government programs like the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP). Most of the money that TAFB spends is on the logistics of storing and moving the food from its warehouses and distributing via “partner agencies,” or local feeding programs like soup kitchens, LGBTQ centers, and Meals on Wheels.
Rising fuel costs are especially concerning for food banks that serve rural areas, which are disproportionately impacted by hunger and food insecurity. “It’s already difficult to reach those communities, and fuel prices are making it even harder to do,” says Celia Cole, CEO of Feeding Texas, an umbrella organization that connects food banks across the state. “I want to sound the alarm, because food banks are a critical layer of protection against hunger in this country, particularly during times of disaster.”
Fuel prices are also proving challenging in urban areas. Even when you don’t have to drive thousands of miles, the cost of gasoline makes the cost of everything else higher, especially when it comes to logistics and distribution. At City Harvest,
