Rising food prices hitting everyone
Mary Schoknecht with Antioch Community Church in Yoder is doing her run at Care and Share collecting food. She helps feed 75 people every two weeks. Mary told me it can be challenging, “Sometimes I can get the sugar, but it’s not regular sugar it’s palm sugar or something. They’re not so crazy about that. They take it and don’t complain.”
Care and Share is just like us paying more for food. Lori Kapu is the organization’s Chief Operating Officer. She told me that peanut butter prices have gone up. It was 12 dollars per case three year ago. Now the price is 22 dollars a case. Tuna is also something that’s going up and Lori’s organization is seeing the spike. Three years ago tuna was 21 dollars a case. Now that same tuna is 49 dollars a case. Kapu told me, “As a food bank it just makes it harder. It is disheartening that we can only do so much with the dollars the community donates. We always want to do more.”
Rising fuel costs and the drought of 2012 are all factors in the food price spike we and Care and Share are seeing. The experts believe it’s an overall three to four percent hike.
