“And a lot of people are just saying they can’t afford food,” he said. “I mean they have the money to buy certain things, but it’s just not stretching.”
Families can also use a community market Shiloh opened in May. Refrigerators contain cartons of milk and eggs while sacks of hamburger buns and crusty baguettes sit on shelves.
Oakland resident Sonia Lujan-Perez, 45, picked up chicken, celery, onions bread and and potatoes — enough to supplement a Thanksgiving meal for herself, 3-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son. The state of California pays her to care for daughter Melanie, who has special needs, but it’s not enough with monthly rent at $2,200 and the cost of milk, citrus, spinach and chicken so high.
“That is wonderful for me because I will save a lot of money,” she said, adding that the holiday season is rough with Christmas toys for the children.
Many people also rely on other government aid, including the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
Kate Waters, a spokeswoman for the USDA, which administers the SNAP program, said there were no immediate plans for an emergency boost in SNAP benefits to compensate for the rising food costs. But she said that previous moves by the Biden administration such as the permanent increase in SNAP benefits earlier this year and a fresh wave of funding for food banks should help ease the burden. In addition, Waters said the fact that schools are open and offering free lunches and, in some cases, free breakfast, should also help.
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Bryan Nichols, vice president of sales for Transnational Foods Inc., which delivers to more than 100 food banks associated with Feeding America, said canned foods from Asia— such as fruit cocktail, pears and mandarin oranges— have been stuck overseas because of a lack of shipping container space.
Issues in supply seem to be improving and prices stabilizing, but he expects costs to stay high after so many people got out of the shipping business during the pandemic. “An average container coming from Asia prior to COVID would cost about $4,000. Today, that same container is about $18,000,” he said.
At the Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado in Colorado Springs, CEO Lynne Telford says the cost for a truckload of peanut butter —40,000 pounds (18,100 kilograms)_has soared 80% from June 2019 to $51,000 in August. Mac and cheese is up 19% from a year ago and the wholesale cost of ground beef has increased 5% in three months. They’re spending more money to buy food to make up for waning donations and there’s less to choose from.
The upcoming holidays worry her. For one thing, the donation cost to buy a frozen turkey has increased from $10 to $15 per bird.
“The other thing is that we’re not getting enough holiday food, like stuffing and cranberry sauce. So we’re having to supplement with other kinds of food, which you know, makes us sad,” said Telford, whose food bank fed more than 200,000 people last year, distributing 25 million pounds (11.3 million kilograms) of food.
Alameda County Community Food Bank says it is set for Thanksgiving, with cases of canned cranberry and boxes of mashed potatoes among items stacked in its expanded warehouse. Food resourcing director Wilken Louie ordered eight truckloads of frozen 5-pound chickens —which translates into more than 60,000 birds— to give away free, as well as half-turkeys available at cost.
For that, Martha Hasal is grateful.
“It’s going to be an expensive Thanksgiving, turkey is not going to cost like the way it was,” said Hasal as she loaded up on on cauliflower and onions on behalf of the Bay Area American Indian Council. “And they’re not giving out turkey. So thank God they’re giving out the chicken.”
