A landmark of Boston, the Greater Boston Food Bank is the largest hunger relief organization in New England, and is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.
I got on the phone with Gary Roy, the Assistant Director of Public Relations at the Greater Boston Food Bank this past week, wanting to learn more about food insecurity and fresh food access in my home state.
The first topic of conversation: MEFAP– the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program.
“MEFAP works with approximately 850 emergency food programs served by FBCMA (The Food Bank Coalition of Massachusetts) to purchase and distribute nutritious foods and locally grown produce, and recently expanded to include locally sourced seafood to those in need across the Commonwealth.” - The Greater Boston Food Bank.
MEFAP consists of two food purchasing programs: Massachusetts Grown Initiative (year-round) and Core Food (July to June). The MassGrown Initiative was introduced into MEFAP to give food-insecure individuals access to fresh produce while simultaneously opening a new market for local farmers, while the Core Food assortment “[provides] a consistent supply of highly nutritious staple products with a focus on produce, protein, and dairy.” Together, MEFAP’s Core Food and Mass Grown program funding purchased 9 million pounds of food in 2022.
According to the MEFAP’s 2022 Fiscal Summary, food insecurity rates in Massachusetts remained high. Pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. But due to the long-term impacts of the pandemic, these numbers only increased. In 2021, nearly 1 in 2 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. As many as 1 in 3 adults faced food insecurity that same year. The number of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefit applicants has increased since the pandemic as well. As of January 2023, more than 1 million MA residents receive SNAP benefits each month. Overall, food insecurity in MA has increased nearly 70% since before the pandemic.
In 2022, “MEFAP accounted for 26.4% of statewide food bank distribution.” Their funding maintains that clients can access fresh, nutritious food and also supports local food suppliers, like Teddie Peanut Butter, which is located in Everett, MA. 42.4%, or $12.04 million of MEFAP’s funding is spent on Massachusetts based suppliers.
Other partners are experiencing higher demands than ever. The Family Pantry of Cape Cod recently spoke at an event, sharing how they are serving over 40% more people than last year – the largest they have ever seen. Most people coming through are the working families servicing the Cape’s tourism economy (and thus the MA revenue) – the landscapers, housekeepers, teachers, grocery clerks, servers, etc. The Salvation Army Chelsea Food Pantry now serves over 900 families, nearing their pandemic high of 1012 families in a single distribution back in August 2020. Lines outside of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry stretched the length of two football fields, exceeding traffic from the worst periods of the pandemic.
David Andre, the director of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry, called the combination of inflation and the cutoff of COVID-19 SNAP benefits a “hunger cliff.” In April of 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, 16.7 million adults were experiencing food insecurity, while 2.6 million adults were experiencing food insecurity in April of 2022.
Food insecurity across the United States remains a challenge, with the decrease in SNAP benefits as well as recent inflation trends. In Massachusetts, MEFAP critically responds to the need for food, especially fresh, local produce, meat, and seafood. Thanks to MEFAP funding, FBCMA would not have been able to distribute an unprecedented 134.2M pounds of food over the past year.
These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?
During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy.
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The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.
Whats next?
Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.
< BackA landmark of Boston, the Greater Boston Food Bank is the largest hunger relief organization in New England, and is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.
I got on the phone with Gary Roy, the Assistant Director of Public Relations at the Greater Boston Food Bank this past week, wanting to learn more about food insecurity and fresh food access in my home state.
The first topic of conversation: MEFAP– the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program.
“MEFAP works with approximately 850 emergency food programs served by FBCMA (The Food Bank Coalition of Massachusetts) to purchase and distribute nutritious foods and locally grown produce, and recently expanded to include locally sourced seafood to those in need across the Commonwealth.” - The Greater Boston Food Bank.
MEFAP consists of two food purchasing programs: Massachusetts Grown Initiative (year-round) and Core Food (July to June). The MassGrown Initiative was introduced into MEFAP to give food-insecure individuals access to fresh produce while simultaneously opening a new market for local farmers, while the Core Food assortment “[provides] a consistent supply of highly nutritious staple products with a focus on produce, protein, and dairy.” Together, MEFAP’s Core Food and Mass Grown program funding purchased 9 million pounds of food in 2022.
According to the MEFAP’s 2022 Fiscal Summary, food insecurity rates in Massachusetts remained high. Pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. But due to the long-term impacts of the pandemic, these numbers only increased. In 2021, nearly 1 in 2 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. As many as 1 in 3 adults faced food insecurity that same year. The number of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefit applicants has increased since the pandemic as well. As of January 2023, more than 1 million MA residents receive SNAP benefits each month. Overall, food insecurity in MA has increased nearly 70% since before the pandemic.
In 2022, “MEFAP accounted for 26.4% of statewide food bank distribution.” Their funding maintains that clients can access fresh, nutritious food and also supports local food suppliers, like Teddie Peanut Butter, which is located in Everett, MA. 42.4%, or $12.04 million of MEFAP’s funding is spent on Massachusetts based suppliers.
Other partners are experiencing higher demands than ever. The Family Pantry of Cape Cod recently spoke at an event, sharing how they are serving over 40% more people than last year – the largest they have ever seen. Most people coming through are the working families servicing the Cape’s tourism economy (and thus the MA revenue) – the landscapers, housekeepers, teachers, grocery clerks, servers, etc. The Salvation Army Chelsea Food Pantry now serves over 900 families, nearing their pandemic high of 1012 families in a single distribution back in August 2020. Lines outside of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry stretched the length of two football fields, exceeding traffic from the worst periods of the pandemic.
David Andre, the director of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry, called the combination of inflation and the cutoff of COVID-19 SNAP benefits a “hunger cliff.” In April of 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, 16.7 million adults were experiencing food insecurity, while 2.6 million adults were experiencing food insecurity in April of 2022.
Food insecurity across the United States remains a challenge, with the decrease in SNAP benefits as well as recent inflation trends. In Massachusetts, MEFAP critically responds to the need for food, especially fresh, local produce, meat, and seafood. Thanks to MEFAP funding, FBCMA would not have been able to distribute an unprecedented 134.2M pounds of food over the past year.
“The Hunger Cliff” and MEFAP Funding’s Crucial Role
A landmark of Boston, the Greater Boston Food Bank is the largest hunger relief organization in New England, and is one of the largest of its kind in the United States.
I got on the phone with Gary Roy, the Assistant Director of Public Relations at the Greater Boston Food Bank this past week, wanting to learn more about food insecurity and fresh food access in my home state.
The first topic of conversation: MEFAP– the Massachusetts Emergency Food Assistance Program.
“MEFAP works with approximately 850 emergency food programs served by FBCMA (The Food Bank Coalition of Massachusetts) to purchase and distribute nutritious foods and locally grown produce, and recently expanded to include locally sourced seafood to those in need across the Commonwealth.” - The Greater Boston Food Bank.
MEFAP consists of two food purchasing programs: Massachusetts Grown Initiative (year-round) and Core Food (July to June). The MassGrown Initiative was introduced into MEFAP to give food-insecure individuals access to fresh produce while simultaneously opening a new market for local farmers, while the Core Food assortment “[provides] a consistent supply of highly nutritious staple products with a focus on produce, protein, and dairy.” Together, MEFAP’s Core Food and Mass Grown program funding purchased 9 million pounds of food in 2022.
According to the MEFAP’s 2022 Fiscal Summary, food insecurity rates in Massachusetts remained high. Pre-pandemic, 1 in 4 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. But due to the long-term impacts of the pandemic, these numbers only increased. In 2021, nearly 1 in 2 households with children in the Commonwealth were food insecure. As many as 1 in 3 adults faced food insecurity that same year. The number of SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) benefit applicants has increased since the pandemic as well. As of January 2023, more than 1 million MA residents receive SNAP benefits each month. Overall, food insecurity in MA has increased nearly 70% since before the pandemic.
In 2022, “MEFAP accounted for 26.4% of statewide food bank distribution.” Their funding maintains that clients can access fresh, nutritious food and also supports local food suppliers, like Teddie Peanut Butter, which is located in Everett, MA. 42.4%, or $12.04 million of MEFAP’s funding is spent on Massachusetts based suppliers.
Other partners are experiencing higher demands than ever. The Family Pantry of Cape Cod recently spoke at an event, sharing how they are serving over 40% more people than last year – the largest they have ever seen. Most people coming through are the working families servicing the Cape’s tourism economy (and thus the MA revenue) – the landscapers, housekeepers, teachers, grocery clerks, servers, etc. The Salvation Army Chelsea Food Pantry now serves over 900 families, nearing their pandemic high of 1012 families in a single distribution back in August 2020. Lines outside of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry stretched the length of two football fields, exceeding traffic from the worst periods of the pandemic.
David Andre, the director of Boston’s American Red Cross Food Pantry, called the combination of inflation and the cutoff of COVID-19 SNAP benefits a “hunger cliff.” In April of 2020, at the peak of the pandemic, 16.7 million adults were experiencing food insecurity, while 2.6 million adults were experiencing food insecurity in April of 2022.
Food insecurity across the United States remains a challenge, with the decrease in SNAP benefits as well as recent inflation trends. In Massachusetts, MEFAP critically responds to the need for food, especially fresh, local produce, meat, and seafood. Thanks to MEFAP funding, FBCMA would not have been able to distribute an unprecedented 134.2M pounds of food over the past year.
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