This summer, families across Atlanta are feeling the pinch: grocery bills climbing, utility costs soaring, and safety nets like SNAP shrinking. In our co-ops, we hear these struggles every week.
What changes have we seen at Urban Recipe this summer?
At Urban Recipe, our goal is to provide a consistent, supportive community and free food through food co-ops. This summer, the biggest hurdle we have had to face is sourcing food.
It’s a little known fact that we spend money to source the majority of the food we distribute. While we get it at a significantly reduced rate from partners like the Atlanta Community Food Bank, when grocery costs increase across the board, it impacts all of us. That means like many of you, we’re spending more than we ever have on food. Add that to the fact that policy changes mean that many of our partners are getting fewer federal dollars (we don’t receive any substantial federal funding). With our partners receiving less funding, our regular sources of food are proving to be less accessible.
How do we get our food at Urban Recipe?
At Urban Recipe, we work hard to have diverse sources of food:
- Food Bank:
- Atlanta Community Food Bank: Our biggest partner is the Atlanta Community Food Bank, providing about 85% of our food. We typically pick up one or two truckloads of food each week, about eleven pallets of food, to serve the needs of our Food Co-ops and Mobile Pantry. We are able to select food (non-perishable, frozen, and some produce) that we know fits the needs of our community. We pay a small share maintenance fee to receive food from the food bank. What used to cost us $80 now costs up to $300 for the same 1,000 pounds of food.
- Food Rescue and Donation:
- Second Helpings Atlanta and Bagel Rescue: We typically receive produce and other items like bottled water and rescued bread and bagels from these partners weekly, receiving a variety of seasonal surplus produce and food that would otherwise be tossed in a landfill.
- Food Well Alliance and Paidea: We receive fresh, local produce from gardens for our co-ops.
- Midwest Food Bank: New this year, we receive food monthly from the Midwest Food Bank, completely free of charge. This food is varied and we have minimal say in what we receive, resulting in some awesome fun items like condiments, and some items that are a little more surprising, like 5 gallon buckets of pickles. We work to get creative to get the food out to families who will use it.
- Purchase Partners:
- Produce: We have partnerships with a variety of local farms and vendors to source high quality, affordable produce for our families. This year, The Common Market and Concrete Jungle have been providing us with the bulk of our fresh produce, with some supplemental purchased produce from Georgia Peach Truck
- Sam’s Club: When supply is low elsewhere, we purchase protein and some frozen veggies from Sam’s Club. While Sam’s Club is more expensive than our other sources of food, it is consistently available, which has helped us continue to feed our families when our other regular partners have not had enough food for our needs. Receiving food from Sam’s Club is definitely more of a logistical challenge than more streamlined partners, not offering bulk online ordering or delivery, but it has been a process we have chosen to take on more often as the stability of our other food sources has wavered.
- Community Drives
- We also sporadically receive food from community drives. Religious organizations, schools, corporations and communities have come together to gather hygiene, home, and food items for our families. The biggest of these this year was the 404 Day food drive organized by the Atlanta Beltline Partnership, gathering food from students at a handful of local Atlanta colleges and universities.
Looking forward
Our co-op members drive our mission. They show up with dedication and resilience. With your help, we can keep showing up too. Every dollar you give helps put food on the table for families facing rising costs.
But the reality is, costs are going up for everyone. More families will be in need of free food and the community provided by Urban Recipe Food Co-ops. The cost of sponsoring a co-op has increased significantly every year and this year looks to be no different. We are working to get creative, form new partnerships, find new sources of food, and continue to grow. But we also rely on dollars at the end of the day.
Our donors are vital to our mission to fight food insecurity, not just in donation, but in collaboration as well! If you know any potential partners or donors, or if you have any creative ideas to increase our food access, we’d love to chat! If you are able, consider making a donation today. Every dollar helps put food on the table of hungry families in our community.
