Food Banks Go Hungry

[question everything]

The Wall Street Journal

Food Banks Go Hungry
As Manufacturers, Retailers Reduce Waste, Overstocks, Charitable Pantries Suffer
By LAUREN ETTER
May 22, 2007; Page B1

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Nationwide, food banks -- clearinghouses that distribute food donations to local charitable pantries and emergency shelters -- report receiving fewer donations in the form of imperfectly packaged canned and boxed edibles. It is the down side of a drive in recent years by manufacturers and retailers for greater supply-chain efficiency. Toward that end, many food manufacturers began producing food in quantities more closely tailored to individual retail customers' needs. That in turn has reduced the amount of food that gets sold to retailers and ultimately returned to the manufacturers.

At the same time, new technology has helped eliminate production errors such as processing canned food without labels or producing an entire order of cereal boxes using upside-down text. To make up for the product loss, food banks are seeking ways to raise money to buy more food. They are also looking for new types of food, including perishables. Some food banks are hiring trucks to pick up food directly from farms.

The food-bank shortages are nationwide. The Community Food Banks of South Dakota in Sioux Falls, S.D., received 35% fewer donations from grocery stores last year. The Greater Chicago Food Depository, the nation's fourth-largest food bank in terms of the amount of food distributed, has 12% fewer donations this year than last.

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Retailers say they have found new -- and some say better -- ways to contribute to food banks. For example, many grocery stores will donate money so a food bank can purchase its own food... Food manufacturers point out that they are still major donors to food banks, even though industry dynamics may be shifting the ways they give. Tim Knowlton, vice president of corporate and social responsibility at Kellogg Co., Battle Creek, Mich., says Kellogg donated more than $24 million of food last year to America's Second Harvest -- a national network of food banks -- up 5% from 2005.

The food banks themselves are innovating as spare cans of beans and boxes of pasta become less plentiful. Some are acquiring more perishable products like bruised bananas and meat just past its sell-by date. Although often more nutritious than canned goods, perishables can be difficult and expensive to handle and carry a measure of risk. But food banks say the sell-by date is usually much earlier than the true expiration date and that they take pains to ensure nothing is spoiled. Some food banks, like the one in Salinas, are buying refrigerators and refrigerated trucks.

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URL for this article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117979110592110150.html (subscription)

[Erika]

1. Idaho was told to expect a 9% increase on electric bills

Couple that with increased gas costs, and the money for charitable giving is gone.