Foodbanks tested during gov’t shutdown; food rescue also important
Some foodbanks broke records for the amount of food they handed out during the government shutdown after SNAP benefits were suspended. And although the need has eased slightly, food insecurity remains an issue. By the latest data, thirteen percent of U.S. households are unable to acquire enough food. Foodbanks and food rescue organizations provide a safety net for our neighbors. Meals on Wheels helps seniors stay in their homes. How are they doing it and what kind of a difference are they making?
Need during the government shutdown
The Freestore Foodbank, serving 20 counties in Greater Cincinnati, says it had on average more than 400 families coming to its Liberty Street and Bea Taylor Markets on a daily basis during the government shutdown. Most of the agency’s food is purchased by food pantries throughout the area. To help, the Freestore Foodbank provided a 50 percent discount to its entire pantry network during the shutdown.
The Foodbank Inc., serving Montgomery, Preble and Greene Counties, on November 12 set a record by handing out almost a quarter million pounds of food in a single day. It also noticed 40-60 new families in its mobile pantries during the government shutdown.
The Ohio Association of Foodbanks represents Ohio’s 12 Feeding America foodbanks and 36-hundred hunger relief organizations. The Capital Journal says on November 6, “they served 70-percent more individuals than the average between January and September.”
Changes to SNAP
Making it even more challenging for families are federal changes to SNAP benefits, formerly known as the food stamp program, which took effect in November. These changes involve eligibility, work requirements and state funding which could squeeze people out of the system.
Politico quotes Feeding America which says, “the cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program alone would eliminate 6 billion to 9 billion meals annually-roughly the same number of meals the food bank network provided last year.”
Executive Director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks Joree Novotny told Politico, “There is no world in which I can imagine we double ourselves, into perpetuity.”
Novotny told Brick by Brick nobody chooses to wait in a foodbank line. “When people do find themselves ultimately turned into for help, they’ve tended to attempt every other thing they can think of to cope, whether that’s seeking help from family members, selling household possessions to bring in some extra incomes, picking up extra wages at work if they can,” she says.
The Ohio Association of Foodbanks served about 800,000 food pantry visitors a month before COVID. In 2024 it averaged 1.4 million visitors a month.
The need in Hamilton and Montgomery Counties
According to Feeding America, fifteen percent of the population in Hamilton County is food insecure or 123,850. For Montgomery County the need is 85,240 or 16-percent. The national average is 13-percent.
Even though the government has reopened, Foodbank Inc. expects to see more demand. It provides 15-18 million pounds of food and supplies to 122 partner agencies, as Brick by Brick’s Emiko Moore reported in this podcast.
The Freestore Foodbank runs a purchase food program where the agency purchases food at wholesale and then passes the savings to its pantry partners. As CEO Kurt Reiber prepares to retire in 2026, he thinks about how the need for food has increased. “When I first got here, we distributed about 7.5 million meals. This past fiscal year (closing 6/30/25) we distributed 47.2 million meals.”
Helping to scale up operations, the Freestore Foodbank built a new 224,000-square foot facility in 2023. It is used as both a workforce training and a distribution center.
Reiber led Brick by Brick on a tour to show off its efficiency. “This was outstanding for us because as you can see, everything’s barcoded. So, our warehouse team knows exactly where everything is at in this building. So, even though we’re in a larger footprint and larger building than what we left before, we were able to combine three locations in this location itself. So, that first and foremost key to me is much more efficient.” And he’s trying to set people up for success in workforce training.
The Freestore Foodbank’s culinary free job training program graduated 104 students this past year. LIFT, also free training, focusing on logistics, inventory management, facilities management and transportation, graduated 73 unemployed or underemployed people.
The role of food rescue in feeding our neighbors
Food rescue is the practice of collecting fresh, edible food that would have otherwise gone to waste from restaurants, farms, grocery stores and more and redistributing it to local social service agencies for people experiencing hunger.
This is important because forty percent of the food produced ends up in the trash. Food rescue organizations try to step in before that happens, delivering donated food to the hungry.
In Southwest Ohio, Last Mile Food Rescue has saved more than 15-million pounds of excess food since 2020 and aims to save 15 million pounds a year to eliminate food insecurity in Cincinnati.
John Dorger is one of about 800 Last Mile volunteers. Before he retired, Dorger worked in the restaurant industry. “You can see the amount of waste that comes out of a restaurant. As you get involved and start doing some of the (Last Mile) food runs, you see what an opportunity there is and how much waste there actually is that could potentially go into the landfill.”
He praises the organization’s app for making his daily food pick-ups and drop-offs easy. It also tracks the amount of food he’s rescued and the CO2 emissions he’s reduced.
Other area food rescue organizations are also helping to fill the need including La Soupe. It rescued 1.3 million pounds of surplus food last year, turning it into one point two million ready to eat meals.
Food for the Soul has partnered with the city to provide free freezer food at Cincinnati Recreation Centers.
The Cincy Freeze & Feed program includes sites at the Hartwell, Millvale, Hirsch and Winton Hills recreation centers.
The University of Pittsburgh did three studies on the effectiveness of food rescue and concluded that besides reducing food waste, it improves food security by 90 percent of the people it reached.
The importance of taking meals to seniors
Feeding America says in 2022 seven million seniors were food insecure and it estimates that number will grow to more than 9 million by 2050. Their research also shows seniors of color are more likely to experience hunger and those who live with their grandchildren are more likely to have trouble purchasing food for their entire family on a limited income. Brick by Brick’s Hernz Laguerre Jr. heard about these concerns and more as he sat down with Meals on Wheels Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky in an interview for this podcast.
You might wonder if the programs provided by Meals on Wheels translate into better health for older adults. The organization points to 38 independent studies that found increased food security, improved diet, reduced health care costs, and more. Separate research analyzing other studies also determined a beneficial effect.
How healthy is the food people are getting?
Area agencies are increasing the amount of fresh fruit and vegetables and protein their recipients are getting.
- The Freestore Foodbank’s weekend feeding program for kids is low sodium, high protein with plenty of fruits and vegetables. The food boxes for adults trying to eat healthier in the Foodbank’s Direct program, are also nutritious.
- The Foodbank Inc. also focuses on nutritious food. One example, a Wright State University mass food distribution with “a heavy focus on fresh produce and also protein items. Those items are more costly for an individual or a seniors food budget.”
But there is still work to be done, locally, nationally and globally. A study in the Netherlands found, “calorie-dense foods like cookies and savory snacks were almost always present but foods like legumes, fish and ready to eat vegetarian products were rare.”
A British study found food provided by food banks is nutritionally poor and often fails to meet individual needs, including cultural and health preferences.
However, The Global FoodBanking Network says fruits and vegetables made up nearly 40 percent of food distributed in 2023. This is possible through agricultural partnerships.
The Ohio Association of Foodbanks’ Joree Novotny says Ohio needs to double down on its funded agricultural clearance program which redirects produce surplus to foodbanks.
“Ohio’s number one industry remains agriculture to continue to have a strong, vibrant agriculture community in Ohio. We also need to have strong markets and strong insurance policies for farmers so that they can make ends meet themselves, and that’s what food banks have functioned like for decades. So, doubling down on proven models for how we reduce food waste,” according to Novotny.
The mission of the agencies and volunteers
From June 2024-June 2025, the FreeStore FoodBank provided 47.2 million meals to our neighbors in 20 Greater Cincinnati counties.
In 2024, The Foodbank Inc. provided over 18 million pounds of nutritious food and over 15 million meals to those in need.
The Ohio Association of Foodbanks, of which the FreeStore FoodBank and The Foodbank Inc. are members, reported the network fulfilled 5,921,836 visits by households to food pantries. On average, it provided take-home groceries to 1.4 million household members each month.
Worldwide, this Global Foodbanking Network annual report, shows food bankers are meeting the moment.
- 55 GFN member food bank organizations provided 762 million kilograms of food and grocery products to 38 million people facing food insecurity in 46 countries across six continents.
- The network of food banks saw a 17-percent increase in food distribution and ensured 58 percent of all food distributed was highly nutritious.
- It helped keep 512 million kilograms of food out of landfills.
Foodbanks even have an economic impact, according to Western Washington University. A study in the College of Business and Economics found substantial effects by two Skagit County food banks.
They generated between $1-3 million in that county’s economy and they created local jobs. Data also shows that food banks are linked to lower crime figures in their areas.
Limitations
Going forward, it may be more difficult to determine the extent of food insecurity. After 30 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has stopped publishing Household Food Security Reports, citing they had become redundant, costly, and politicized.
But The Ohio Foodbank Association’s Joree Novotny says there are other ways to get the information. “So, the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey measures that at the county level each year, so we can see about how many Ohioans in every county are eligible for our services and draw some assumptions from that data.”
It remains to be seen how the SNAP overhaul will affect food insecurity. The changes involve expanded work requirements. However, The Trump administration has apparently backed off an idea that suggested all recipients would have to reapply.
Going forward
Cincinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval recognizes the problem of food insecurity. During the State of the City address in November, he announced the city and Kroger would fund a pilot program for $100 worth of free food and delivery every month to 200 residents of Winton Hills.
Councilmember Anna Albi championed the program and put this message out on Instagram: “I’m so grateful to everyone who has been working so hard to bring this program to life for over a year. Thank you to @cityofcincygov , Mayor @aftabpureval and his team for all their time and energy supporting this project. And a BIG thank you to the Winton Hills Community Council and @krogerco for their collaboration and commitment to serving our residents with this innovative program!”
Here’s something else as cities look at the problem more broadly. The National League of Cities is urging its members to use data to improve food insecurity. It suggests they visualize geographic patterns, share the data with community members to spark conversations, build partnerships to make solutions more effective and impactful and design and strengthen grant applications.
What ideas do you have? Volunteers locally are stepping up by thousands to help make a difference. We want to build community around context and solutions in our cities. Your feedback is very important to the effort, as we continue to dig deeper into the responses to some of our most pressing social issues, including the housing crisis. Click on the green button below to take a short survey to help reinforce and refine our work. Thank you.
Ann Thompson – Host, Producer
Over the last thirty years in Cincinnati, Ann Thompson has brought a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her reporting. She has reported and anchored for WVXU, WKRC, WCKY, WHIO-TV and Metro Networks and freelanced for NPR, CBS and ABC Radio. Her work has been recognized by the Associated Press and she has won awards from the Association of Women in Communications and the Alliance for Women in Media. She is a former News Director and Operations Manager. Ann has reported from India, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Belgium as part of fellowships. Ann thinks of the Brick by Brick project as “journalism for good.” She serves as host and producer. Ann lives in Anderson Township with her husband Scott. They have two boys. Jake graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2022 and Kurt attends West Point.
