Food banks and food pantries

What the evidence says

Food banks can claim one outcome with confidence: people get food when they need it. In 2023, 13.5 percent of U.S. households, about 18 million, were food insecure at some point in the year, and 5.1 percent had very low food security. A 2016 systematic review of 35 publications concluded that food banks play an important role in meeting immediate, severe food needs.

The same review found that food banks do little to improve food security overall, the steadier measure of whether a household reliably has enough to eat. Their supply is often too small and short of nutrient-dense foods such as dairy, vegetables and fruit. A 2017 review of nine studies of pantry food bags found nutritional quality varied widely and that dairy, vitamins A and C and calcium were especially scarce.

Rigorous comparisons are rare. Charitology found no randomized trial comparing pantry access with no access, which would be hard to run ethically. A randomized trial has compared pantry models. Adults recruited from traditional pantries and assigned to Freshplace, a client-choice pantry with monthly coaching and referrals to other services, were less than half as likely to have very low food security over a year than adults receiving standard food bags, and ate about one more serving of fruits and vegetables a day.

Charitology grades the evidence moderate for the outcome food banks claim, immediate relief: the research agrees, though Charitology found few randomized studies. The evidence on longer-term food security is weak, and that is not mainly what food banks set out to change. Charitology has not found a reliable per-dollar estimate of outcomes, so this entry has no Impact Calculator figure.

Where it sits on the depth scale

Food banks are relief (depth 0). They meet the need today, and the need returns tomorrow. That is not a criticism: someone has to make sure people eat while other work goes on. Feeding America, a national network of food banks, says that for every meal its network provides, SNAP, the federal nutrition program, provides nine, and that charitable food alone cannot meet the need. Public programs and the economy around them are where the structural layer sits.

Open questions

• How many pantry users would otherwise go hungry, and how many would find food another way? Charitology has not found a good estimate.
• Can pantries that add choice, coaching and referrals act deeper on the depth scale? Freshplace suggests they might. See symptoms and sources.
• What share of all giving goes to relief like this? That is the depth census.