Food Insecurity is about Access

The current pandemic is bringing a myriad of social problems to the forefront. One, in particular, is access to food. Whether it is the children who rely on school for three meals a day or food insecurity as a result of ballooning unemployment- we have a big problem.

Food insecurity is another word for hunger. Food insecurity is a quantitative measure. Hunger is a feeling, an abstract psychological concept that is difficult to measure. For example, if I get hungry in the morning, I have options to find a meal. I don’t worry about my next meal. I don’t worry about where to find food or how to pay for it. I don’t need to skip meals until my paycheck arrives next week. I am hungry but I have access to food. Food insecurity is about access. The USDA has been measuring food insecurity since 1995 using a national survey. Here is a graph of food insecurity in the United States (from this report). Food insecurity is measured at the household level. This is a graph that measures access to food for US households. This is what this post is all about – access to food. 

In the US, the latest data from 2018 says 88.9% of households have access to their next meal.  This means 11.1% of households are food insecure or lack access to food. The USDA report shows this number is down from a 14.9% peak in 2011. This is misleading.

What this graph actually says is that 50 million people were hungry in 2008 and stayed hungry until 2014. The number of hungry people dropped to 40 million in the United States from 2014 to 2018.  The use of percentages, in this case, minimizes the size of the problem.

Food Insecurity in the United States

Forty million hungry people is a big problem.  California has an estimated population of 39.5 million people, but this is also misleading because we are talking about one giant state. What about this example – the population of Americans that lack consistent access to food is equal to the population of Utah, Iowa, Connecticut, Nevada, Arkansas, Mississippi, Kansas, New Mexico, Nebraska, Idaho, West Virginia, Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Montana, Rhode Island, Delaware, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska, DC, Vermont, and Wyoming combined.

The sheer number of people that lack access to food is astounding to me because I have access to food anytime I want.  I can go to my pantry, the refrigerator, the grocery store, a restaurant, or any other place that sells food and buy it.  I cannot imagine a world without being able to access these options – this is the true size of the problem.  For 89.9% of Americans, there is no problem. It simply is not our reality.  Why would we ever design a solution to a problem that does not exist? Because it does exist. Because people are hungry.

The Current Solution to Food Insecurity

The current solution is a top-down patchwork network of public and private money.  It is not reducing the amount of food insecurity in the United States.  It is feeding the hungry.  Let me explain what I mean by using a few examples. Feeding America is a national organization working to end food insecurity. This national organization of over 200 food banks and 60,000 food programs has been steadily growing for 35 years. It is a 2-billion-dollar organization. They have 460 thousand followers on Twitter.  They are the front line against food insecurity, but according to their own graph – they have made little progress toward reducing the food insecurity. 

Why is this? The reason is that access to food is restricted to those who can pay for it.  Foodbanks provide access by distributing free food. We do not need more distribution.  There are 40,000 grocery stores in the US. Where do you think Feeding America gets its food from? Grocery store donations, food producers, and restaurants.  Foodbanks also buy food with donated funds.  This entire process is f*cked up. We don’t need more food banks and food pantries – if you are hungry you should have the ability to go and get food from the grocery store or a restaurant. Food insecurity is not a distribution problem. Amazon, UPS, Fedex, and the US Postal service deliver everywhere. Walmart has more than 4000 stores in the US and averaged 20 Billion per year in pretax revenue for the last 15 years.  Kroger has 2764 stores and has averaged 2.3 Billion per year in pretax revenue for the last 15 years.  Target – 4 Billion. Costco - 2 Billion.  I could keep going, but hopefully, it is already starting to sink in.

Fifty Years of the SNAP Program

Just in case you need more evidence, here is another example from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). The SNAP program began in 1969 and celebrated 50 years last year. The graph below shows the growth in participation over time since its inception. The program covers everything from school lunches, food stamps (now EBT), and Meals on Wheels. Enrollment continues to grow steadily because the program does not address the food access problem.

This does not look like a solution that is working. In fact, it appears to be getting worse as the population of the US increases overtime.  The goal should be to get people off the SNAP program. To do this we need to design a new solution to an amazingly simple problem – how do we make sure every person in America has access to another meal?

Food as a Utility

Since grocery stores have a geographic monopoly, they need to become the front lines against hunger – not food banks and not the local and federal government.  Their customers are not going away because people need food and have no other way to get it. In Nebraska, the utility companies like OPPD and MUD provide power and water to everyone in the state. They have no competition and generate significant recurring revenue. OPPD manages and maintains the power infrastructure – power lines, transformers, and power plants. MUD manages water and gas lines. We don’t see water banks and power banks popping up around the country to meet the need because we recognize these as essential parts of society.  Grocery stores are also essential to society.

Grocery stores manage every aspect of food distribution. They handle the ordering, selling, and distribution. Grocers track your purchases via rewards cards. They know exactly what to order and what quantities to order and when to order it. No new structures need to be built for this solution, but we do need to change the flow of money. Grocers need to track their expenses and get reimbursed or credited back tax money or pass the expense on to other customers – actions they are already doing. The burden should be on them to solve the food insecurity cost problem the same way it is on them to solve any other business cost problem. This solution would also solve the shoplifting and pilferage problem because stealing food is a lack of access solution that doesn’t exist for other utilities. Is stealing water an issue? Is stealing power an issue? No, because once the access problem is solved overuse and overconsumption becomes the issue – not theft. Both of which are far more equitable and good for business.    

Will this work? Yes, it will, but dismantling giant governmental structures is hard.  Changing laws and changing ways of doing business is hard. But this problem is too big to ignore (remember 22 states big) and the benefits far outweigh any unforeseen downside to solving the food access problem. When you remove all of the scaled-up layers of bullshit and provide access to food when people need it without restriction all the insecurity and worry go away as well.