Food banks face costs, delays in USDA program

The San Antonio Food Bank is racking up tens of thousands of dollars in extra costs because contractors with the federal government’s new food relief program are delivering food boxes to the nonprofit’s warehouse instead of to distribution sites, the Food Bank’s top executive said.

With the Food Bank feeding 120,000 people per week during the novel coronavirusfueled recession instead of the usual 60,000, Eric Cooper was eager to receive boxes of either produce, meat or dairy from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s new Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which kicked off May 15.

But his enthusiasm waned after he learned contractors, including San Antonio events planning company CRE8AD8, wouldn’t be following a “truck to trunk” delivery model that calls for distributors to drop off boxes at parking lot giveaways and cover what is known in the food bank industry as “lastmile” expenses.

“It’s a government program, and I believe CRE8AD8 and everybody else was paid to do it, but they just aren’t,” Cooper said.

Gregorio Palomino, CRE8AD8’s owner, did not respond to a request for an interview.

The USDA’s food box program calls for distributors to purchase $3 billion in fresh produce, meat and dairy, pack it into family-sized boxes and deliver them through food banks and other nonprofits to Americans made desperate by the pandemic recession.

In an April webinar for potential bidders, a USDA official said the agency wanted contractors to deliver the boxes directly to families at distributions like the one the San Antonio Food Bank held Friday at the Alamodome. That event provided food for 1,150 households.

“Ideally, what we would like is a mutually agreeable small quantity drop-off, where the boxes go basically out of the truck and into the trunk, if you will,” the USDA’s David Tuckwiller said. “We have seen the pictures of cars lined up at food banks, and that would be ideal for us, off the truck and into the trunk, if at all possible.”

But Cooper said the USDA contractors who have provided boxes to the Food Bank have delivered the product directly to its warehouse on the far Southwest Side, not to the people who need the food. Those contractors include Borden Dairy, DiMare Fresh, GoFresh Produce, ES Foods, Tasty Brands and San Antonio’s CRE8AD8.

Through Thursday, the Food Bank had spent more than $83,900 to unload more than 15 truckloads, store the food and then deliver it to giveaways for volunteers to load into cars, Cooper said.

Jerry Lara / Staff photographer Dayna Robokowski, San Antonio Food Bank produce procurement manager, documents the boxes delivered May 28.