Food banks across the U.S. are absorbing higher fuel and operating costs as diesel prices rise, forcing organizations that serve tens of millions of Americans to make difficult spending decisions, according to The New York Times.
For the Oregon Food Bank, whose routes extend from a Portland warehouse all the way to the Idaho border, the spike in diesel prices has added roughly $20,000 to the organization's monthly fuel bill, according to president Andrea Williams. And the additional expense is starting to affect how much food her organization can afford to place on those trucks. "It's an opportunity cost," Williams said. "It could be going to food for people, but instead it's going into the price of gas."
A 2024 Feeding America report cited by The Times found that up to 50 million Americans require emergency food help in a given year, with food banks playing a central role in getting supplies to pantries and soup kitchens throughout the country, including in remote rural regions.
At the Greater Boston Food Bank, COO Cheryl Schondek told CBS News that fuel expenses have jumped nearly 30% from one month to the next. The bank's eight-truck fleet delivers food each morning to pantries spread across Eastern Massachusetts, moving more than 110 million pounds of food over the course of a year. Rather than pull back on service, Schondek said the bank has pursued efficiency measures such as sourcing produce differently and taking deliveries of unwrapped items like leeks to lower handling costs. "I cannot say to a client that I am unable to feed you," Schondek said.
Maryland Food Bank CEO Meg Kimmel told CBS News that within roughly the past two months, the bank's purchasing invoices have begun reflecting both fuel surcharges and outright vendor price hikes. A single vendor's seven-cent-per-pound price increase, Kimmel noted, might appear minor in isolation, but applied across the food bank's full annual purchasing volume it would amount to $1.5 million in added costs. Last year the bank provided food to over one million state residents; half of what it distributes is purchased directly rather than donated. Data from the CBS News Price Tracker shows that grocery prices in March 2026 ran close to 20% above what consumers paid at the start of 2022.
The broader inflationary dynamic was explained by JP Krahel, an accounting professor at Loyola University, who told CBS News that petroleum underpins the price of nearly everything. "Prices of everything are going up because you either want to go somewhere, and that takes fuel," Krahel said. "Or something had to get to you, and that takes fuel."