High Inflation Impacting Local Food Banks

With inflation hitting an all-time high in January, coming in at almost 8%, some local food banks say it’s becoming harder to keep their shelves stocked at a fair price. The Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma mainly distributes their food out to the local pantries that are accessible to everyone across Green country.

Greg Raskin, Director of Communications for the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma, says due to the economic crash in 2008, inflation rising, and the COVID-19 pandemic, they are getting less food given to them from community donations and the big manufacturers who were their main source, but are no longer donating as much.

Raskin said now they are having to buy the food instead. According to Raskin, the food bank can buy in bulk, which makes the cost a little cheaper, but not by much. He said sometimes they are even buying expensive preassembled boxes because the pandemic has impacted the number of employees they can have to pack the boxes themselves. He said while the already-made boxes make things easier, their budget takes a hit.

Raskin says inflation is heavily impacting how much they are paying for those items they are buying. He said milk is the thing they have seen the highest increase in along with many other basic items.

According to Raskin, the loss of large donations from manufacturers has really hurt them.

“They don’t have the overruns they once did,” Raskin said. “They might want to use some of the slightly mislabeled or not perfect items that once were donated now they are finding other uses for it.”

He said those companies have also switched to a lot of digital technology, meaning the machines are not making as many mistakes. He said those mislabeled or slightly dented items were a large part of their supply, now they just simply don’t exist in many cases.

He said with the federal funding that helped people with food during the pandemic ending, he expects the inflation increases to start impacting families more. He said they will likely see a higher demand for food at the local pantries in the upcoming months.

“We are worried about what families are going to do when they feel that inflationary pressure and our job is to try to provide consistent access to food for people who are struggling to get by,” Raskin said.