Food banks in New Jersey are facing rising prices and difficulties sourcing and transporting food. Another ripple effect of the global supply chain impasse created when the COVID-19 pandemic closed factories, closed ports, ran out of shipping containers, and sickened truck drivers.
Backlogs have also squeezed supply, while business shutdowns to stem the spread of the pandemic have left many New Jerseyans unemployed and needing help to feed their families for the first time.
Carlos Rodriguez, president and CEO of the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, New Jersey’s largest anti-hunger and anti-poverty organization, said: We provide food to local pantries in 15 counties. “The shortages that supermarkets are dealing with lead to less donations to us and more costs.”
Before the pandemic, Community FoodBank purchased about 10% of the food it distributed to families. Rodriguez said retailers and supermarkets don’t have the ability to donate as much as they used to, so they now buy up to 36% of their meals.
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We expect to grow from 50 million meals in 2019 to 84 million in 2020 and 93 million this year.
“We hear stories of cargo ships being backed up with foreign products,” Rodriguez said. It happens and we have to pay for it.In the beginning we were paying 20% to 25% more for basic staples.We got better but it literally happened every day It keeps us nervous.”
In case of shortages, The Community FoodBank has leased additional warehouses so they can stock up or pull out of warehouses as needed.
Food expenses increased by 4.6% year-on-year. Prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs surged 10.5%, according to the September Consumer Price Index.
Marked items are different. One time it was an aluminum can. According to Rodriguez, there is currently a problem with apple concentrate.
Community food banks are handing out more than 10,000 turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner, Rodriguez said, and turkey prices are about 35 cents a pound higher than last year.
The Center for Food Action, an Inglewood-based nonprofit that provides food, housing and utility assistance to low-income families, found a box of apple juice for the snack packs they give out to the kids on the weekends. says Irwin Vogelman. , operations director.
Nourish.NJ, a Morristown-based nonprofit that provides food, housing, employment training, and medical services, was looking for bone-in chicken, but Tyson Foods, a major chicken supplier, had no supply. Therefore, there was no food distributor to supply what the group needed. Nourish.NJ Chief Operating Officer Dave Bein said: Instead, the organization had to buy more expensive boneless chicken and he had to pay more per pound for the cooked meals he served.
Food isn’t the only thing that’s going up in price for food banks. Gloves that employees wear in the kitchen have skyrocketed from about $38 a case to $80 a case in the past 18 months, Bein said.
The community food bank has been waiting for an order for six 26-foot trucks for more than a year because of a shortage of microchips for the vehicle computers, Rodriguez said.
As aging vehicles needed to be replaced and the number of trucks increased to handle more deliveries, food banks rented trucks during that time, spending more in the long run.
And relying on other companies for deliveries is now in jeopardy.
“Some vendors called me and said, ‘Look, I know you’re expecting delivery on Wednesday. No drivers. I’ll be there on Thursday,'” Bain said. “It doesn’t help much when people are queuing up and waiting for their food.”
In such cases, nourish.NJ would often send employees to food distributors and wholesalers to pick up orders from warehouses, Bein said.
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The Center for Food Action faced similar problems in transporting goods. “Some items are available, but we don’t have a way to ship them quickly to our warehouse,” Fogelman said.
I encountered another complication regarding my order. Due to limited drivers and staff, many vendors are asking for higher minimum order quantities. Nourish.NJ does not have its own warehouse or much storage space, so handling larger orders becomes a delicate choreography.
The nonprofit transfers the food to refrigerated trucks that stay running and distributes the food at farmers markets three hours later.
nourish.NJ doesn’t want to rely on just one vendor that may not be able to deliver, so it contracts with multiple companies and pays more instead of relying on the one with the lowest bid sometimes.
And through it all, the need remains.
“This pandemic will take many families a long time to get out of, especially as the cost of supplies and housing has increased as well,” Rodriguez said.
Agreed. “People we serve are still suffering,” he said. “We can’t let them get lost in the shuffle. We need to keep them focused and giving them the support they need.”
want to donate? These are New Jersey food pantries.
- Hackensack Seventh-day Adventist Church. 106 Euclid Avenue, Hackensack. 201-489-6390 or hackensacknj.adventistchurch.org
- Christ Episcopal Church associated with Tri-Arc Community Development Corp., 480 Warwick Ave., Teaneck. 201-833-4502 or christchurchteaneck.org
- Center for Food Action, 192 W. Demarest Ave, Inglewood. 201-569-1804, ext. 25. Also at 316 First Street, Hackensack. 201-883-9375 or cfanj.org
- Hasbrouck Heights Food Pantry, 320 Boulevard, Hasbrouck Heights. 201-288-0195
- CUMAC, 223 Ellison Street, Paterson. 973-742-5518 or cmac.org
- Human Needs Food Pantry, 9 Label St., Montclair. 973-746-4669 or humanneedsfoodpantry.org
- St. Mary’s Food Pantry, 22 Lakeside Avenue (behind the building), Pompton Lakes. 973-831-4442 or stmarys-pompton.org
- nourish.nj (formerly Community Soup Kitchen and Outreach Center), 36 Sussex Ave., Morristown. 973-267-0709 or nourishnj.org
- St. John’s Soup Kitchen, 22 Mulberry St., Newark. 973-623-0822 or njsk.org
- House of Love Soup Kitchen/Pantry, Church of God & Saints of Christ, 589-95 Central Ave., Newark. 973-204-7713 or houseoflovesoupkitchen.org
- Church Women United Food Pantry, 1240 Clinton Ave., Irvington. 973-373-5930.
- Community FoodBank of New Jersey, 31 Evans Terminal, Hillside. 908-355-3663; 6735 Black Horse Pike, Egg Harbor Township. 609-383-8843 or cfbnj.org
- Interfaith Food Pantry, 2 Executive Drive, Morris Plains. 973-538-8049 or mcifp.org
- Rahway Food for Friends, 1221 New Brunswick Ave., Rahway. 732-381-7201 or rahwayfoodforfriendsnj.org
- Hands of Hope Food Pantry, St. James Episcopal Church, 2136 Woodbridge Ave., Edison. 732-236-3330 or handsofhopenj.org
- Elijah’s Promise Soup Kitchen, 18 Neilson St, New Brunswick. 732-545-9002 or elijahspromise.org
- Somerset County Food Bank Network, 9 Easy St., Bound Brook. 732-560-1813 or somersetfoodbank.org
- Trenton Area Soup Kitchen (TASK), 72½ Escher Street, Trenton. 609-695-5456 or trentonsoupkitchen.org
- Flemington Area Food Pantry, 154 Route 31 (in front of Walmart parking lot), Flemington. 908-788-5568 or flemingtonfoodpantry.org
- JBJ Soul Kitchen (Jon Bon Jovi’s restaurant serving customers who need to pay), 207 Monmouth St., Red Bank (732-842-0900). 1769 Hoover Avenue, Toms River (732-731-1414); Robeson Campus Center, 350 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr Blvd., Newark (closed) jbjsoulkitchen.org
- Lunch break, Dr. 121. James Parker Blvd., Red Bank. 732-747-8577 or lunchbreak.org
- Bradley Food Pantry, 605 Fourth Avenue, Bradley Beach. 732-775-0161 or bradleyfoodpantry.org
- Fulfill (Monmouth and Ocean County Food Bank), 3300 Route 66, Neptune; BEAT Center, 1769 Hooper Avenue, Toms River. 732-918-2600 or fulfillnj.org
- Food Bank of South Jersey, 1501 John Tipton Blvd., Pennsauken Township. 856-662-4884 or foodbanksj.org
- Cathedral Kitchen, 1514 Federal Street, Camden. 856-964-6771 or Cathedralkitchen.org
- TOUCH New Jersey Food Pantry, 549 State St., Camden. 856-803-3030 or touchnewjersey.org
Staff writer Jim Beckerman contributed to this article.
Ashley Balcerzak is a reporter covering affordable housing and the intersection of our lives in New Jersey. Subscribe now or activate your digital account for unlimited access to her work.
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