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Apr 23, 2008 7:03 pm US/Central
Soaring Prices Hit Food Pantries Especially Hard
With More In Need During Economic Crunch, Area Pantries Finding It Hard To Keep Up
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
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Food prices are soaring, leaving many area food pantries in a crunch.
CBS
There is a global run on rice, and warehouse membership clubs Sam's Club and Costco are limiting how much of the grain staple customers can buy.
CBS 2's Derrick Blakley reports shoppers are paying more for rice and other foods, and local food pantries are seeing more needy families.
No matter where they turn in the supermarket these days, shoppers are confronted with skyrocketing prices.
"Orange juice shouldn't be $2.50 or three bucks a carton," said shopper Belle Allen. "Eggs shouldn't be where they are."
At the heart of food inflation is corn. Prices have almost doubled because so much is being used to make ethanol.
Corn feeds the hens that lay the eggs that are up 30 percent in a year, and it feeds the cows, pushing milk up prices up 10 percent.
But the prices that are squeezing consumers are hitting food banks even harder.
"We're feeling it in every aspect of what we do," said Kate Meahr of the Chicago Food Depository.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes donated and purchased food to 600 soup kitchens and food pantries in Cook County, like the Chicago Food Depository, that serve half a million people every year.
But the depository's paying more for food and getting less at the very time they're needed the most.
"We find more people are turning to us than ever before," Meahr said. "We have a 12 percent increase in the number of people who are going to the pantries and kitchens."
The short-term outlook for food prices isn't promising. A highly respected farming forecaster says there's a 1 in 3 chance of a summer Midwest drought, and that would send food prices soaring even higher.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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