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Southeast Ohio Foodbank loses 162,000 pounds of food to canceled federal shipments
By: Theo Peck-Suzuki | Report for America
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ATHENS, Ohio (WOUB/Report for America) — Decisions at the federal level will once again have a direct impact on dinner tables throughout southeast Ohio.
The Trump administration canceled $500 million in shipments to food banks, a project the Biden administration announced in October.
The money was earmarked specifically for emergency food purchases, which form the bulk of food banks’ supply. Shipments bought with that funding have now been canceled.
“That is food that was previously showing as approved and had an expected date for arrival at a food bank. Then that status changed to ‘returned,’” said HAPCAP Development Director Eva Bloom.
The Trump administration clawed the money back out of concerns that such spending was unsustainable, CNN reported Saturday. It wasn’t clear at first what would happen to the food, but Ohio Association of Foodbanks Executive Director Joree Novotny said she has now received confirmation the shipments are not coming.
“These are dozens and dozens of truckloads, millions of pounds of food,” Novotny said.
Bloom said the Southeast Ohio Foodbank is losing 13 orders, or a total of 162,151 pounds of food.
“We’re seeing eggs, pork chops, cheese, chicken, milk, turkey breast,” Bloom said.
Novotny referred to these as “center of the plate” foods: high-protein, nutrient-dense. Food banks like to provide these ingredients to ensure families are getting what they need from meals.
There’s no easy way for the Southeast Ohio Foodbank to replace the lost federal shipments.
“We are very unfortunately not in a position to make up these purchases with dollars from private sources. We are a food bank operating in a region that is economically distressed. I do my best job to raise as much money as we can, but we’re just not gonna be able to buy — we wouldn’t be able to go out and buy this food,” Bloom said.
“It’s a little devastating to someone who really cares about our families getting high quality nutritious foods so they can live healthy and active lives,” Bloom said.
Novotny said the number of people struggling to buy groceries has not gone down since inflation first surged in 2022. She said about one-fifth of those people are seniors on fixed incomes who can’t just get a new job. Many others are families in which the parents already have jobs but still can’t make ends meet. Overall, Novotny estimated that 30% of Ohio’s population qualifies for food bank services.
“They’ve seen the cost of not only food, but other basic expenses like housing, like utilities, like healthcare, increase at a rate that they can’t keep up with,” Novotny said.
Many food bank visitors report facing dire financial decisions: for example, whether to fix a car they need for work or buy food for the week. Novotny said that’s where food banks can have a big impact.
“If they know that they can come to us for help with that food so that they can repair that car, then I’m glad they made that choice,” Novotny said.
The cancellation of shipments comes after Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine proposed a $15 million state-level cut to food banks in the biennial budget. Novotny said state-level funding accounts for 20% of Ohio food banks’ inventory. The $15 million cut would amount to one-fourth of that — in other words, the cut would reduce food banks’ inventories by about 5%.
It remains to be seen whether the General Assembly will follow his suggestion; the Ohio House of Representatives will release its draft of the next budget April 1.
“I firmly believe that our members of the House of Representatives understand that putting families at increased risk of hunger doesn’t do us any good on reducing expenditures long term,” Novotney said. “This is a prime example of a really cost efficient, effective and proven public-private partnership. We stretch the state’s investment to incredible degrees.”