This video story is reported and produced by Mckenzie Muskett and Alice Barlow. Web editing by Jasmine Buie.
As the holidays approach, families are beginning their food shopping to prepare for the household feasts. As grocery shoppers are picking out their ingredients, many are realizing the noticeably rising costs of the food that’s normally brought for lower prices pre-pandemic.
In Florida, a 2016 Coleman-Jensen survey found that 17% of residents are food insecure, which is more than 3 million people, according to ABC Action News. The president and chief executive officer of Feeding Tampa Bay, Thomas Mantz, explained that “the pandemic drove more folks into our world than we had ever seen before. It was up as much as 400 plus percent.”
The increase in participants of Feeding Tampa Bay is evidence that food insecurity is at a steady rise as the cost of food continues to climb higher. CNN Business explains the rising costs of food, saying that “food manufacturers and grocers have faced higher costs for commodities, labor, transportation and other expenses during the pandemic. Those costs have escalated in recent months, leading manufacturers to pass off some of these costs to their retail customers, who in turn have passed on a portion to consumers.” Therefore, the higher costs of production, shipment, and expenses are later repaid by paying customers. These necessities are yet another factor in food insecurity.
Mantz continued on to dissect the factors and the different instances food insecurity can impact a home.
“I think it’s important to understand that food-insecure really means that you don’t have steady access to food. So whether that’s because of economic reasons, access reasons, or a variety of other factors. So you know, it means for a senior, maybe they’re eating one meal a day, it means for a child, maybe they’re getting most of their food in a school, and they have gaps at night or over the weekend.”
“Many employers have moved towards paying what they would consider equitable wage,” Mantz said. “We often hear the $15 an hour and we’re happy to see more and more folks being paid at a better rate, probably more appropriately to their labor. The problem is that we have seen expenses rise commensurately.
“So it’s not just grocery prices, although those are up,” Mantz continued. “It’s gas prices and housing prices. So all the things that would have given an advantage to those that we serve are really having more income that is being eaten up by an increase in a cost of living virtually across the board. For most of the things that really matter, are most important in our households.”
