Higher diesel prices are squeezing margins up and down the food supply chain. That squeeze is especially challenging for food banks across the country. Annette Hacker, the chief communications and strategy officer at the Iowa Food Bank, said the rising fuel prices are pushing the cost of acquiring food higher too.
“The fuel costs affect the food coming in the door, because, of course, the food we source has to come here on a truck, and fuel prices affect that, as well as food going out the door that we deliver free to the doorsteps of our 700 partners across 55 Iowa counties. So, the bottom line is that food costs more. It costs more to get it here, it costs more to get it out the door, and more Iowans need help with food than ever before.”
Hacker said food bank trucks drive approximately 270,000 miles every year, and it’s hard to cut costs or adjust routes.
“We’re down to not much flexibility at all. In the last couple of years, we’ve streamlined our routes, and we’re very efficient with the routes in terms of every truck leaving here fully loaded, and they’re loaded according to every stop they’re going to make. Some of them also come back with product on them if we have product donations in certain areas of the state. So, we’re about as lean and mean as we can get. There’s nothing we can do about fuel prices, and there is really not a lot we can do to change our routes, because we are committed to free delivery to the doorsteps of our partners, and we have a lot of them, and a service area that covers 30,000 square miles, and a mission that needs to get accomplished.”
The extra money the country’s food banks have to spend on fuel could go toward a lot of food.
“We are still sourcing as much food as we can to try to meet the growing demand. However, like any expense to our budget, we look at this extra $5,000 a month we’re spending on fuel. We look at any expense like that and think that could be food. That could be 8,300-plus meals, and, of course, we’d far rather spend our budget on food than fuel. We hope fuel prices level off here sooner than later, but it doesn’t look very promising, does it?”
She said food banks across the country appreciate the public’s help in getting food out the door.
“We just really appreciate everyone who advocates for our neighbors facing hunger, and who recognizes this is a very real problem across our country. There’s no community in this country that is not affected by food insecurity, so we appreciate the people who recognize that. We appreciate our partners so much who are on the front line, directly handing that food to our neighbors facing hunger, and we can end hunger if we work together.”