Month: February 2026

Food Pantries: Helping Shoppers Get Food Home

When we talk about designing respectful and effective food pantries, focus falls on the quantity and quality of food alongside the experience people have while shopping. Anyone who’s ever worked in a food pantry knows how difficult and how valuable it is to address these goals.

Because of the challenges of uplifting dignity within our current emergency food program, it’s easy to neglect smaller but still essential components of running a functional food pantry. One of these is considering how people carry their food, in the pantry and on the way home.

It’s difficult enough to maintain basic pantry operations without worrying about what happens next, but how people transport their food is an essential component of building access.

Shopping in the pantry

There’s no “one size fits all” for how to get around a food pantry, since there is so much diversity in the style and design of these organizations. But because the most dignified and respectful (and therefore effective) food pantries empower shoppers to choose their own food, it’s important for pantries to offer a way for guests to carry it as they go.

While pantries who prepack boxes have the ease of simply handing off a box or bag, choice pantries need to provide a shopping cart or basket for the ease of their guests. Shopping carts are the gold standard, since many people may not be able to carry the amount of food they would like to take home.

The size of the cart matters. Standard carts donated by grocery stores may be too big for small spaces and will naturally encourage people to take more food. Smaller carts are more maneuverable and potentially more suitable for your food supply, but may have to be purchased.

The headache that shopping carts cause for staff is due to their tendency to wander. Since shoppers may lack reliable transportation, a cart enables them to take more food than they can carry alone. Once it leaves the property, however, it’s unlikely that cart is ever coming back. If your pantry uses shopping carts, it’s important to have a system for tracking them.

One of my previous pantries numbered our carts and documented who used each one, and then volunteers escorted shoppers to their cars or to the edge of the property. Although it didn’t keep all carts from wandering, we knew who they disappeared with and could often follow up.

Shopping baskets in pantries may be unavoidable, but they are often an uncomfortable limitation. Especially for pantries who limit how often someone can shop, it may prevent them from taking the food they need and be an insurmountable barrier for people with disabilities.

Taking food home

Food pantries also face the difficulty of finding ways for shoppers to carry their food home. Food pantries are rarely located in convenient locations, which means shoppers may have to carry food long distances. Many people forget their reusable bags, or may not even own them since having to purchase them is a significant barrier. This means food pantries either need to provide something to carry food in, or put their shoppers in the uncomfortable position of having to manage it for themselves.

If using shopping carts, it’s important for pantries to offer boxes or bags up front, or else suffer the traffic jam of pantry guests loading food into their cars can by can.

Our pantry used to save boxes for shoppers alongside accepting donations of paper and reusable bags. Donated plastic and paper bags are difficult and labor intensive, since they may be damaged or come in awkward sizes that demand sorting, with a fair amount of waste.

Options:

  • Offer shopping carts to your guests. Develop a food delivery system for people who live too far or can’t transport the food themselves!
  • Purchase or solicit donations of carts and/or baskets. Consider the appropriate size for your pantry space and a system for tracking them.
  • Purchase or solicit donations of bags or boxes for shoppers to take home. Consider what shapes and strength are necessary based on your food supply and shopper needs. For example, paper bags are awful on rainy days, and large boxes of canned goods may be impossible for some shoppers to carry.
  • Increase the frequency that people can shop to reduce the need to take a lot at once. Empowering guests to shop at least once a week will help decrease the amount of food needed for each visit.

Remember that our goal is to end hunger, which depends on people getting the food they need to feel secure. Don’t let your biases about quantity, quality, or capacity influence your operations decisions. Every way you maximize the amount of food leaving your facility should be celebrated as a success.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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Preparing for the Next Storm

Our world is a terrifying place right now, especially for those of us doing direct service with vulnerable populations. I find comfort and hope in punk rock music, and today’s blog title made me think of the song The Next Storm by my favorite musician, Frank Turner.

Last week, more than half the country started digging out from a catastrophic winter storm (and bracing for the next one). I’m in Portland, Oregon where we’ve had barely enough winter to dust off my rain boots, but I’ve been anxiously checking on friends hunkering down across the East Coast.

Because of the size and scope of this storm, I also can’t help thinking about the enormous impacts it had on regional food systems. There are countless stories of empty grocery store shelves, long lines, and impassable roads.

Similarly, food pantries had a similar experience plus the additional responsibility of distributing food that might not keep through an extended closure. Mostly dependent upon donations, it will take time for pantries to refill their supplies.

It’s an important reminder that even a few days of severe weather can have long-lasting impacts on food access.

Food pantries are relegated to the fringes of established food systems, which means they can be the last to recover from major interruptions like weather events. This is despite them having the most vulnerable clientele. For example, when schools are closed, children lose access to the free lunch program. Providing additional home meals on top of lost work hours can be catastrophic for already stressed budgets.

What can food pantries do to prepare for sudden or unexpected closures?

  • Maintain a stockpile for days when you may not receive incoming donations. One of my past food pantries kept a stash of boxes for people who showed up after we closed, didn’t have cooking capabilities, or had a caseworker in a rush picking up food for them. It included staples like cereal and shelf-stable milk, canned soups, fruits, and vegetables, pasta and sauce, and other odds and ends. We recognized it was an inadequate long-term solution, but allowed us to serve our shoppers even when we had no donations coming in. It’s a luxury to have an emergency stockpile, but useful if you have the space!
  • Establish personal relationships with your donors. At one of my first school food pantries, we developed an incredibly positive relationship with a local Grocery Outlet, who called me whenever they had a donation. Sometimes I could take it, and sometimes I couldn’t, but we kept it casual and comfortable enough that they always checked in with our pantry before exploring other options. When regular food deliveries pause, personal relationships may help facilitate alternative options.
  • Invest in your freezers. In my experience, many pantries offer frozen meat but don’t offer additional frozen items. If you have access, it’s incredibly worthwhile adding a freezer to improve your frozen food options to improve access to fruits, vegetables, and ready-to-eat meals.
  • If you don’t have extra storage space but have funding for emergency food supplies, consider distributing grocery store gift cards. They empower families to pick the items they need, which is infinitely more dignified and effective at meeting their individual needs. Because stores are most likely to open sooner than pantries after disruptive events, gift cards improve community food access. And yes, I’d advocate for gift cards that allow people to buy what they want, without restriction.

How can pantries help their shoppers prepare for service interruptions?

While I recognize why they are sometimes necessary, I firmly believe in eliminating limits wherever possible. They are more a manifestation of our biases and assumptions about hunger than a response to client needs.

Remember that our goal as food justice champions is to end hunger, which means helping our shoppers build the security they need so that an event like a winter storm doesn’t have to be a food access crisis.

The opinions expressed here are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of my employer.

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