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Washing EnzymeOthers, particularly large outfits in the Tenderloin, are seekingcreative new ways to cut costs, but not services, in this grave newworld. They are clubbing together to buy in bulk, paying upfront tolock in prices months down the road, or swapping out specific foodsin search of cheaper staples. "I've been doing this almost 14 years now, and this is the mostchallenging time of all, primarily because of costs we simply can'tcontrol," said Tom Nolan, the executive director of Project OpenHand, which provides 2,600 meals a day to homebound patientssuffering from HIV/AIDS and other diseases like cancer. Among those costs are fuel for meal deliveries in town and freightto bring the food here from growing areas, as well as soaring costsof the food itself. "Every article I read says that food inflation is 5 or 6 percent,"said Dan Schuman, director of operations at Project Open Hand. "Butwhen I drill down into the categories of what I actually buy, it'smuch higher: canned tuna is up 50 percent. Meat is up 12 to 18percent. Dried beans are up 30 to 40 percent. Milk is up 33percent. Cheese is up 50 percent. Eggs are up 66 percent. Rice isup 30 percent in just the last four months, and there are actuallyshortages." Eggs, once a cheap protein source, are so expensive that the SanFrancisco Food Bank, which supplies most nonprofit food programs,no longer buys them. At Glide Foundation, the cost of a meal is up more than 10 percentfrom a year ago. At St. Anthony Foundation, which cooks an averageof 2,600 hot meals daily, it's risen from 33 cents a plate to 40cents a plate -- an 18 percent increase in three months. ExecutiveDirector Father John Hardin expects that food costs will be up atotal of 25 percent within the next three months. "It's not what you would call luxury items," Hardin said. "It'sthe basics: bread, milk, cheese, eggs, rice, grains. Things likethat are just skyrocketing." Several factors are to blame for today's high food prices,including corn being grown for ethanol, weak growing seasonsoverseas and increased demand for grains, meat and dairy frompopulous developing countries like India and China. Experts believethat for many food items, higher prices are not an anomaly, but arehere to stay. Stretching dollars Cutting programs or meals is not seen as an option to makebudgets. With organizations like St. Anthony's buying upwards of 20percent of their food, to be successful, they are adoptinginnovative strategies to stretch dollars. Two years ago, the San Francisco Food Bank, St. AnthonyFoundation, Project Open Hand, Meals on Wheels and Glide Foundationformed a consortium to buy staples like rice and dried beans inbulk. That early, prescient move has proved critical in recenttimes, and they are talking now about what additional food itemsthey might buy together. Sage advice from rice growers led the Food Bank to purchase thisyear's supply in one go -- seven tractor trailer loads of2,000-pound sacks of rice. Volunteers have rebagged the rice in1-pound portions. St. Anthony's has begun securing food on the secondary markets, aspeculative move that so far has helped them lock in lower prices. "The Food Bank really tipped us to that strategy," Hardin said.Another strategy is reaching out to new folks to donate food, andHardin is developing relationships with Safeway, Trader Joe's andBoudin Bakery. Going green, while expensive up-front, has also helped controlcosts. Project Open Hand has replaced most of its fleet oflumbering old vehicles that got nine miles per gallon with 10fuel-efficient Scions. That has meant a 70 percent savings on fuelalone. And because they are smaller, the Scions can be parked inthe basement, saving a further $20,000 on parking fees. Both Project Open Hand and the Food Bank have new solar panelsfrom PG&E that should save them $15,000 in electricity coststhis year. Then there are smaller shifts, like replacing bread with tortillasor buying fattier cuts of meat, as St. Anthony Foundation has done,or subbing mackerel for tuna, which is the practice at Project OpenHand. Finally, there are internal moves, like not filling vacantpositions and instituting salary freezes for the coming fiscalyear. Food Bank in crisis None of the nonprofits could survive without the Food Bank, whichdonates up to 50 percent of the food they need. It is at the heartof the ecology of how San Francisco feeds an estimated 150,000people, many of them children, at daily risk of going hungry. The Food Bank stocks 180 neighborhood food pantries where a familymember might drop in to pick up a week's worth of groceries. Allare oversubscribed and serve 6,000 more people this year than theydid last year. It also provides food to over 400 other nonprofitagencies. "We couldn't do what we do without them," Nolan said of the FoodBank, which provides $1.1 million worth of food to Project OpenHand annually. Over the past few years, the amount of food the U.S. governmentprovides to the San Francisco Food Bank has dropped from 4 millionpounds of commodity food annually to 1 million pounds. Othersources of shelf-stable and packaged food are flat or slightlydown. That's of grave concern to nonprofit agencies. The good news is that the Food Bank has more than made up thosedecreases with fresh produce, which often has higher nutritionalvalue and is more expensive than packaged food. "The more produce we can provide our agencies or clients, the morewe are saving them money or giving our clients food they can'tafford," said Paul Ash, executive director of the San FranciscoFood Bank. But that, too, comes with an edge: Getting fresh produce out intothe community is expensive for the Food Bank and agencies. It mustmove fast and it is expensive to refrigerate. And stressed as charities are by rising costs, they also areseeing more hungry people than ever before. On Memorial Day, St. Anthony Foundation had its busiest day ever,serving almost 4,000 meals. All have seen new faces in their foodlines following the closure of other, smaller food programs. "The line does look different. In many ways, it's a working poorline," said Willa Selden, Glide's CEO. It's not only food programs seeing increased demand and highercosts; clinic visits to Glide are up 20 percent. "We are gettingmany more people coming through all our programs, and at a timewhen there are no more resources," Selden said. City, state and federal funding is not going up with costs. Thatwill lead to increased demand at city soup kitchens, and evenorganizations that receive no city money, like St. AnthonyFoundation, will be hit by city cutbacks, Hardin said, because whenan agency might lose a government contract, there are still hungrypeople who need to be fed and will seek a new place to go. The situation is equally dire outside San Francisco. AlamedaCounty Community Food Bank said that for each of the past sixmonths, it has fielded calls from 300 new families seeking foodassistance. In times like these, the importance of a diverse base of donorsbecomes most clear. Nobody is sure what will happen to donations, which tend to beseasonal, but anecdotal evidence suggests this could be a toughfundraising year. Some of Project Open Hand's small, monthlysubscribers have regretfully stopped giving, Nolan said, and Seldensaid that church service donations are down at Glide.
2008-06-12 09:54:30