Love Chapel: Food insecurity continuing to grow

Love Chapel is continuing to see increased demand for help with food after setting an all-time record for most families served in a month in December and contends with challenges in meeting demand for eggs amid the bird flu outbreak.

A total of 1,468 families turned to Love Chapel last month for help with food, up from 1,337 families in January 2023, according to executive director Kelly Daugherty, who said January tends to be a slower month at the food pantry.

Love Chapel served a record 1,698 families in December in what Daugherty said he believes was largely driven by a tougher job market, inflation and stagnant wages.

“I think our economy continues to suffer,” Daugherty said. “The job market has dried up. …Unemployment has ticked up a little bit. I think that because of that, wages aren’t really going up that much, but inflation — even though it’s slowing down — continues to increase.”

Demand for help with food in Bartholomew County has doubled over the past couple years.

Love Chapel served an average of around 1,500 families each month in 2024, Daugherty said. By comparison, the food pantry served an average of 750 families per month in 2022.

Eggs and bird flu

At the same time, Daugherty said the food pantry is doing what it can to buy eggs but is unsure whether Love Chapel will be able to keep enough stock over the course of the year.

So far, Love Chapel has been able to buy enough eggs for everyone who has come to the food pantry, Daugherty said. If Love Chapel is unable to buy enough eggs for everyone, Daugherty said the food pantry will add an additional meat item.

Egg prices recently hit a record high as the U.S. contends with an ongoing bird flu outbreak as eggs have become hard to find at times, The Associated Press reported, citing government figures.

The latest monthly consumer price index showed that the average price of a dozen Grade A eggs in U.S. cities reached $4.95 in January, eclipsing the previous record of $4.82 set two years earlier and more than double the low of $2.04 that was recorded in August 2023, according to wire reports.

The spike in egg prices was the biggest since the nation’s last bird flu outbreak in 2015 and accounted for roughly two-thirds of the total increase in food costs last month, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

“We’ve always had eggs as one of those things we want to have in stock and we buy a lot of,” Daugherty said. “We have what we call 18 core items with eggs being one of those, but I don’t know that we’re going to be able to keep up with it.”

Relief is not expected any time soon, according to wire reports. Egg prices typically spike around Easter due to high holiday demand. And the U.S. Department of Agriculture has predicted that egg prices are likely to go up 20% this year.

Even if shoppers can afford eggs, they may have difficulty finding them at times. Some grocers are having trouble keeping their shelves stocked, and customers are encountering surcharges and limits on how many cartons they can buy at a time.

Gleaner’s Food Bank has limited the number of eggs that Love Chapel can get to 500 dozen per month, about a third of the number of families the food bank served last month, Daugherty said. Love Chapel also buys eggs from local retailers and directly from Rose Acre Farms, which recently suffered a bird flu outbreak.

“We’ll buy as many (eggs) as we can,” Daugherty said.

Food insecurity

The update from Love Chapel comes as the number of Bartholomew County residents experiencing food insecurity rose in 2022 to its highest total in at least 13 years, according to the most recent data from Feeding America, the nation’s largest anti-hunger organization.

The rise in local food insecurity in 2022 coincides with Indiana’s decision to end pandemic-related enhanced food stamp benefits, as well as inflation that started spiking in 2021 and peaked at 9.1% in June 2022.

Food insecurity is described as a lack of access to enough food for an active, healthy life, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Data from Feeding America shows that an additional 2,800 Bartholomew County residents experienced food insecurity in 2022 compared to the year before. Overall, 11,320 local residents were food insecure in 2022 — the highest total on record in data going back to 2009.

A total of 13.7% of local residents — nearly 1 in 7 people — experienced food insecurity in 2022, up from 10.4% in 2021 and the highest percentage since 2009, when 14.1% of local residents were food insecure, when the country was reeling from the Great Recession.

Daugherty, for his part, said he expects demand for help with food to continue increasing this year.

“I think we’ll continue to see an increase in the amount of pounds (of food) we give out (this year),” Daugherty said. “We’re fully expecting that, which means that we’re going to have to have more funds available to be able to do that.”