Local food pantries worry about unintended consequences of state law

Jun. 29—Local food pantries are concerned that state legislation meant to make it easier to get food to people in need could instead undermine their ability to provide food free of charge.

Senate Bill 16 passed the Ohio General Assembly with overwhelming bipartisan support and is now headed to Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine for his signature.

State Sen. Steve Wilson, R-Maineville, sponsored the bill to help organizations like La Soupe in Cincinnati. The group takes food from stores that donate to it, uses the donated ingredients to create different meals for the community, and provides them to the community for a nominal charge to cover handling costs.

Current law that protects donors like grocery stores and restaurants from liability over donated perishable foods doesn't allow nonprofits that receive perishable items to charge for them. Senate Bill 16 would change that and allow nonprofits to charge handling costs.

"This is a straightforward bill. It simply insures we protect organizations that are working towards the public good," Wilson said in sponsor testimony.

But local food banks that provide food to the community free of charge fear that grocery stores will start charging them for perishable items once agencies that charge for food — and therefore have more money — are competing for it.

"Any organization that charges its food insecure neighbors for meals is going to have an expanded budget, not just to pay employees, but also to pay companies like Whole Foods and Kroger for the products that they can't sell to the general public. The stores would be happy with this arrangement, since they still get to turn a profit (or close to it) on a significant amount of food. The problem arises when there are limited resources in a given area." wrote Mary Beringer, grant manager of Dayton's Foodbank Inc. in an article on their site.

Multiple grocery stores contacted for comment did not respond.

Local food pantry leaders say this is even more important amid proposed cuts to Ohio food bank funding in the state's proposed budget.

"The bill could change the situation for the worse. It's really uncharted territory...for us and our other agencies (local food banks)... The biggest change that we may see (is) a reduction in donation of product, and if we don't have that product, seeing that it is 1/3 of our distribution here every year, we have to come up with it some other way." said Lee Truesdale, the chief development officer at the Foodbank.

When asked about these concerns, Wilson said that grocery stores and food banks that charge for their food could not make any sort of profit and that they could only cover their costs under the proposed law.

Despite that, local food banks still worry about the indirect effects as food banks across Ohio have been struggling to reach the needs of their communities as the increase in demand for food rises.

"In May of last year we served 858 families. In May of this year, we served 1,451 families... The trend was going up even in January." said Gail Matson, executive director of the Greene County FISH Pantry.

"January, February, March, April and May are normally our slow months of the year and from there it kicks up until the end of the year. But this year we started out at 1,100 families in January and February, 1,300 in March, and back up to 1,431 in May."

Between the need for food and the lack of funding coming in, Matson said the bill itself takes money out of the pantries' pockets.

Other local food pantries like Fairborn FISH Food Pantry agreed.

"I think it would have a tremendous negative impact on that (helping people who need food). With the cutoff of the initial COVID benefits, inflation, and immigration, we're seeing new families that FISH everyday." said Jane Dooly, the executive director at Fairborn FISH.

According to Feed America, one in seven children in Ohio face hunger. In 2021, around 1.3 million Ohio residents struggled with hunger and food insecurity as well.

"The first step of getting out of poverty is having food to eat, and they can use the money they would otherwise use to buy food to help pay their electric bill, or to continue to pay their rent or their mortgage to continue to have a roof over their heads," said Dooly.