[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: Hello and welcome to Just a Bite. I'm Eliza Richardson, Programs and Contracts Manager with the Ohio association of Food Banks. The Ohio association of Food Banks is Ohio's largest charitable response to hunger. Representing Ohio's 12 Feeding America food banks and 3,600 hunger relief agencies, we support our members by operating programs including two state funded food programs in addition to AmeriCorps programs, benefits, education and enrollment programs, and more.
September is nationally recognized by the Feeding America Network as Hunger Action Month, a national campaign held every September to raise awareness and inspire action to end hunger in America.
To celebrate, the Ohio association of Food Banks is proud to release our findings to a recent survey in our newest publication, Hunger Study 2026.
In today's episode, we will be sitting down with Audrey Van Zant, Director of Communications at oaf, who led the Hunger Study. This year we will be taking a closer look at how the Ohio association of Food Banks conducts its biennial Hunger Study and why this research matters to our network.
Together, we'll explore how the study is conducted, the similarities and Differences between the 2024 and 2026 studies, lessons learned along the way, and how we will continue to strengthen our data collection efforts year after year.
Throughout the episode, you'll hear short clips from conversations with Ohioans who participated in the survey and chose to share more about the experience behind the data.
Their stories helped bring the numbers to life and provide a deeper understanding of the challenges many households face every day.
As always, you can find show notes for this episode and all past
[email protected] justabite let's get started.
Hello everyone. I'm your host, Eliza Richardson, Programs and Contracts Manager with the Ohio association of Food Banks. And today I am joined by my colleague Audrey Van Zant. Audrey, thank you so much for being here. And can you introduce yourself to any new listener?
[00:02:17] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm sure some of the listeners have heard me before as I've hosted a few episodes, but real quickly, I serve as the Dirt Director of Communications here at the Ohio association of Food Banks and I have the privilege of serving across all departments to help with their communication needs, whether that is marketing, design, storytelling, talking points, or just supporting the implementation of their programs, which I love doing.
And one of those projects includes the Hunger Study, which I'm excited to talk to you about today.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you so much for telling us a little bit about your role.
Like you just said, you were the Project manager for the 2026 Hunger Study, which is what we're going to be discussing Today, can you tell our listeners a little bit about what the hunger study is?
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure.
So the hunger study is a study done by the Ohio association of Food Banks and their member food banks and partner agencies.
And we do this biannually to collect data concerning budget shorts for shortfalls and households needing the charitable hunger relief system.
So we started this back in 2023 and did like a, basically like a trial survey in 2023 and then the first one was implemented in 2024, actually, thanks to your partnership, because you were the project manager at that time.
And since then we have established a cadence where the survey will be done biannually. So every two years we'll conduct this survey.
And what it is is it is a digital electronic survey that neighbors receive.
So we work in collaboration with our 12 food bank partners to then identify their agency partners who can distribute the surveys out to neighbors. So when neighbors are coming to an on site pantry or distribution to receive food, they were then handed the survey flyer with a QR code and link where they could go and answer questions concerning food security, their experience there at the food bank, what, what their demographics of the household look like.
Just trying to get a better scope of what our neighbors actually look like. And then we are able to take that data, analyze it, put it in this report that's gonna be released, and in doing so, we can use those for future advocacy efforts. So this data is really used to amplify our mission. It's amplified in our advocacy work through legislation, whether that's state or federal legislation, our grant writing, our funding, just our partnership. So we use this data in a lot of ways, but the long and short of it is it's a survey to help us better understand who is an Ohio association of Food Banks network neighbor.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Awesome. Thank you so much for that high level overview. So as you mentioned, we first began doing these surveys in 2023 and again in 2024 and now in 2026. And things have changed over the years and we've done them a little bit differently. So can you talk to us about how the hunger study has changed over the years and why we sort of shifted it a little bit from the way that we've done it in the past.
[00:05:30] Speaker C: Yeah, so like I mentioned, we kind of did this trial year in 2023, and that method in 2023 was very similar to what we did in 2024.
Well, this year we took a bit more of a strategic approach.
So rather than splitting it up across Evenly across all 12 food banks, we looked at Their service territory, Mid Ohio Food Collective, is our largest food bank. They serve 20 counties where some of our smaller food banks like CCL, the Food Bank Mahoning Valley, they only serve three counties. So we try to take that into consideration, having a more logical approach on how many surveys are actually going out in the food bank network.
And then in addition to valuing our neighbors time, we also value of course, our food bankers time. And so one of the things that I know you did in 2024 when you were project managing was this like post survey survey right to the food banks. And in that we learned that feedback they received from neighbors and volunteers is that the survey was a little bit long, it was a little invasive with some of the questions, and that the compensation at the time, which was a $10 gift card for really for some people, wasn't worth how long the survey was.
So in addition to some of those more logical approaches that we took, we also heard the feedback and took that into consideration.
So this year the hunger study was reduced in half.
It went from 40 questions to 20 questions. And then we also increased the incentive.
So going from a $10 gift card to a $15 gift card. Again, our neighbors times are really valued and really important that they're compensated for that.
So just making sure that year after year we continue to take a more logical approach.
We sent out a survey again this year which we'll take into consideration in 2028.
But I think really shortening the survey and increasing the incentive was some of our biggest changes that led to so much success.
[00:07:31] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, I think it's really important that over the years we really listen to the feedback that comes from not the individuals at our food banks who are working with the neighbors day in and day out, but the neighbors themselves and figuring out what works for them, what doesn't work for them, so that we can get an accurate representation of what they're experiencing and use that as a reflection of our network. We want to be able to say in confidence that we were as accessible to our neighbors as possible, giving them incentives because we know that they're working multiple jobs while taking care of their family, so it can be difficult to take time out of their day to do something that they're not required to do.
And we also want to let them know that their voice is extremely valued to us and we value their feedback.
And so I totally agree that those were two really important improvements that we made from previous years.
[00:08:33] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was really interesting.
You know, you mentioned about kind of meeting neighbors where they are and meeting the food banks where they are.
You know, to even take this survey, they had to be in our lines, right? So they already had to be experiencing some type of hardship to be in a food bank line.
But then when I was talking about some of those logical approaches that we took, some of those things that we talked about with neighbors and when we're talking with the food bank, as far as identifying sites is, you know, do you. Is it a drive thru distribution? Right. Is the neighbor already going to be waiting for quite a while, in which case they're kind of looking for something to do. So here's a survey, but also not wanting to be overburdened some of their experience. If they want to come in and just, you know, quietly get their food and leave, then they have the right to that and should have the respect and dignity without a survey. But we did get a lot of really good respondents and a lot of people who were excited about the survey.
Which brings me to one of the things that I wanted to talk about.
You had asked about, you know, what did we do differently this year? And we did all these small tweaks, right? We cut the survey in half, we increased the incentive. We did some logical things internally.
But one of the things that we wanted to do this year to amplify the data is we also did this storytelling collection piece of the survey, which I thought was really interesting.
So as I mentioned, you know, neighbors received this flyer that had a QR code or a link, they would go take this anonymous survey, 20 questions, received the $15 gift car, and all of that data is what we are then interpreting in this report, which I know we're going to talk about those findings here in a little bit.
But we really wanted to amplify those findings with stories. So in addition to receiving the hunger study survey questionnaire, they also got an interest form. So neighbors were able to opt into this interest form. They didn't have to, but if they were interested in sharing more of their story, they could fill out this form in which we would reach out to them. And we were able to actually collect forms from a handful of neighbors in which we were able to interview nine of them from across the state, truly across the state, and north, south, east and west, all over, and were able to have their experiences kind of amplify some of these stories that we're going to hear about later in the hunger study.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
And it just allows us to understand a little bit more about what exactly the people that we serve are going through in their daily lives. So can you tell us a little bit more about the neighbors that we collected interviews from?
[00:11:19] Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. So I had the privilege of going out and collecting neighbor stories as well as my colleague Sarah.
You know, again, nine different neighbors all across the state, all in different circumstances. So Joan is this single retiree, you know, military vet living in rural Ohio. We're on the opposite side of that. We interview neighbors like Charmaine from Cuyahoga County. She lives in Cleveland and she's a working mom of four. She has four school age children who are at home who are, are growing quick and need a lot of food. And Charmaine talks a lot about her experience. Experience.
She recently has a job change which came with an increase of wages, which is an incredible opportunity for households, but it also can impact public benefits.
We've talked in some of our previous episodes about benefit clips that listeners can go back and listen to those if they care too. But sometimes just even taking a small pay raise can kind of put neighbors actually out of their benefits and putting them in our food bank lines.
And Charmaine is, is prime example of that. So I could talk about all the neighbors for forever, but it was really, really interesting to go out and just hear all walks of life from, you know, a single retiree older adult in rural Ohio to a working mom of four in the most urban part of the state.
[00:12:48] Speaker B: That's incredible. And we actually have an audio clip from the interview with Charmaine that we can take a listen to.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Of course you have to update them if your income changed. And as soon as I did, that left me with like three something. And just realistically in a house of four kids with bills and lights and gas and for sure hygiene necessities and just household like, it's just the list goes on and on. Everything that already comes out of my check.
Now I have to add food on top of that because now food is one of gases went up. So it's like that 300 is not really doing a lot for a house of five, but really a house of four because I can go without sometimes my kids, I will not let them go without. That's not going to happen. Absolutely.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: You're listening to Just a Bite. I'm your host, Eliza Richardson, serving as the programs and contracts manager with the Ohio association of Food Banks. And today we're talking about the findings from the 2026 Hunger Study. In honor of Hunger Action Month, we just listened to an audio interview from one of our neighbors, Charmaine, who lives in Cuyahoga County, Charmaine talked about making sure that her kids don't go without food. I know some of the questions in the hunger study were surrounding household trade offs. Let's talk about some of the key findings from the 2026 Hunger Study. And can you talk about some of the data points that really stood out to you?
[00:14:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
So trade offs were, were a huge one.
[00:14:18] Speaker D: Right.
[00:14:18] Speaker C: Like we had heard Charmaine just talk about how she's going to make sure that her kids never go without. But that could mean that unfortunately for her, she does go without.
And so we ask questions for, throughout the hunger study about all types of things, demographics, chronic health, public benefit assistance. And we found some, some really shocking findings that kind of amplify, you know, Charmaine and many other Ohioans real experiences.
The 2026 Hunger Study found that more than half, 52% of households reported at least one member of the household skipping meals during the past year.
And that includes 59% who did so every month. So again, when we're thinking about Charmaine's household, she has five people, five members in that household, and she makes sure that her four kids always has food, but she may go without. So Charmaine may be one of those, you know, 52% that reported at least one member of the household skips a meal, which is really jarring. I mean, that's over half of neighbors who are having to make hard decisions.
But hard decisions don't just stop at if I am I going to skip the meal period, or am I going to skip the meal and also skip something else? Right. So some of the trade off questions we asked were, are you having to decide between, you know, your meal and X, Y and Z? And those X, Y and Z include 48% of households who are choosing between affording medicine and affording food.
Right. So 48%, that's almost half. Almost half of them are choosing between medicine and food, which is such a stark reality that people shouldn't have to face.
57% are choosing between utilities and food, and 63% are choosing between affording transportation or affording food.
Just really, really large numbers. I mean, almost all of those numbers that I just listed are over half. So it's just, it's a real reality. I mean, it's. It's a hard reality for a lot of people and having to make hard choices literally every day.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: Yeah.
The one especially that sticks out to me is having to choose between affording food and affording medicine or healthcare. Can you talk to us a little bit more about that? I can Imagine, like all of these things, skipping them is detrimental to someone's health, well being. But medicine is something that a lot of people can't live without.
[00:16:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I know a lot of the work that we do here at the association with the Food is medicine work. You know, it's about that concept, food is medicine. Right. People cannot necessarily cure, but they can control a lot of health conditions with food. So whether that's diabetes, hypertension, even mental health conditions. Right. Can a lot of them can be impacted through the nutritious value of food? So we asked those questions in the hunger study because we know that importance, but we wanted to have the data, you know, to back it up.
And unfortunately, the data did back it up. So of surveyed households, more than three quarters, or 76%, said that someone in their household had a health condition. So 76% of the 202,644 people that we surveyed have someone in the household who has a health condition.
And of those health conditions, we found that.
Or, I'm sorry, of those people who have conditions, we found that 53% of them are having to choose between affording medicine and affording food. So it's not only just affording, you know, ibuprofen for my headache, but we're talking about diabetics. We're talking about people who are having, decide between their insulin and their meal. Like really life or death circumstances. Right.
It's a difficult reality. It really can be life or death for many people, including the 45% who reported that they have blood, a high blood pressure, the 42% who reported having a physical or mental disability, the 31% who reported having diabetes, or even the 16% who mentioned having heart disease or stroke. These are very serious conditions that typically need a nutritious and healthful diet to balance out.
And it should, it shouldn't be anyone's reality that they have to make those decisions, but the data is proving that it's. It's more people than not reality.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And I know that some of the neighbors that you talk to shared a similar sentiment around their health conditions and controlling their health conditions.
And coming back to our neighbor Joan, a resident of Allen county, who is the retired military veteran and who lives alone and cherishes every moment she gets to spend with her three grandchildren. But she also explains that her health condition makes it impossible for her to work, therefore increasing the financial challenges she faces on a fixed income, forcing her to rely on emergency food providers like her food bank. So here's a little bit of Our interview with Joan,
[00:19:34] Speaker D: and then she moved out. And then I've had surgeries and whatnot since then, and it's just I always worked. And then in 2022, before I had my last surgery on this knee, I had to have a cardio catheterization, and I was at 70% blocked. Oh, wow.
[00:20:01] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:20:01] Speaker D: And then I kept having pulmonary problems, and I have COPD and asthma. So I stopped working in 2023. Okay, well, I stopped working in 21, and then I had the surgery in 22. And then 23, I got. I filed for SS, not SSI, disability through Social Security. And they denied me because I didn't work two years prior to. I had to work 10 years prior. So I got.
They denied it.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:20:45] Speaker D: And so that's when my neighbor signed me up for food bank.
And so I was getting food.
[00:20:58] Speaker B: So we've heard from a couple of neighbors and we've talked about trade offs and difficult decisions households are making and what we learned about the health challenges that neighbors are facing. But Audrey, I'm curious what else the survey found specifically around public benefits access?
[00:21:15] Speaker C: So again, the survey touched on a lot of things. We've talked about health conditions, we've talked about some of those just general trade offs, kind of the next large section of the hunger study that we really dove into was public benefice public benefit assistance for our neighbors.
We know here at the association that hunger doesn't happen in a silo.
We know that there's typical other social determinants of health that impact people's livelihoods.
A tragedy, a health challenge, a job loss, any unexpected expense can quickly create a financial hardship that leaves someone needing assistance and finding themselves in our food bank lines.
In fact, neighbors that were surveyed who were in our food bank lines during the time that we were serving for the 2026 Hunger Study, we actually found that some of them benefited from public benefit programs such as SNAP and Medicaid. So our findings were that nearly half, 49% of those surveyed benefited from Medicaid, 45% received SNAP benefits, 16% utilized energy assistance program, and of households with children, 29% benefited from free school meals.
And these are just some of the few programs that we asked about. And this really just highlights that although these programs play a very important role in the basic needs for family households, sometimes they're not always adequate.
Which, which is then is then causing our neighbors to have to seek additional assistance, whether that is at the food bank, putting it on a credit card, or having to get creative with their means. Of living.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for highlighting that.
It's really interesting to see the spread of programs that neighbors depend on in addition to our Food Bank Network.
And we know that hunger relief providers are just temporary solutions to hunger for Ohio families. And we cannot provide nearly enough meals as public benefits like SNAP can give to families.
And according to Feeding America, for every one meal that a food bank provides for families, SNAP provides nine meals. However, the average SNAP benefit in Ohio is just $6 a day per person.
So while SNAP gives families a significant source of stability to be to feed their families, most households likely cannot support their family for the whole month on SNAP or other public benefits, including our Food Bank Network. So, Audrey, can you talk to us a little bit about how long SNAP benefits might last for a household and kind of what the survey told us about that?
[00:23:56] Speaker C: Yeah, we asked that exact question.
And I think it's really important what you said about, you know, the Feeding America Network has talked about how every meal, one meal a food bank provides, SNAP can provide nine. Again, just showing that it's the first line of defense for our neighbors.
However, sometimes the benefits either are adequate or just simply aren't stretching as far.
So we asked our neighbors about this in the 2026 Hunger Study, and we found that among SNAP recipients, 78% exhausted their benefits within the first three weeks.
And then 24% said that they only lasted one week or less.
So you got to think about the folks who are receiving, you know, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP or food stamps to purchase their groceries, whether they're falling in that 24, that's only lasting a week, or if they're falling in that 78, that's only lasting three weeks. Nonetheless, it's not lasting a month.
And they have mouse to feed. Whether that is a single household like Joanne, who's just one mouth, or our neighbors and friends like Charmaine, who's, you know, five different mouths to feed.
The benefits just aren't stretching. Now, whether that is due to a decrease in benefit due to, you know, job changes or the impacts of the economy and just financial hardships, all of our dollars aren't stretching as far.
But the reality is that this program is the first line of defense for hunger.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: But.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: But it's ultimately not the only line of defense for hunger. And our findings show that, you know, 78% not lasting, 78% finding that their benefits didn't last for. For the whole month is a shocking Right. That leaves a week that they have to.
They have to figure it out.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.
And it's important to talk about, you know, cost of food these days and snap benefits not going nearly as far as they might have used to. So a lot more people are depending on our network than in previous years. So thank you so much for highlighting that and thank you so much for sharing all about the hunger study.
This data is really important to understand who is experiencing hunger in the state of Ohio and who is utilizing resources like our Food Bank Network and who these people are, what are they experiencing, what do their daily lives look like?
And really just allows us to understand more about the people that we serve and the experiences of food insecure Ohioans across the state. So thank you you so much for giving us a little insight into that.
[00:26:43] Speaker C: Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm excited for everyone to read the full report and and learn more.
[00:26:56] Speaker B: Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Just a Bite. I want to thank Audrey so much for joining us today and sharing some of the findings from the 2026 Hunger Study.
The full report is available now on our
[email protected] and you can also follow along on our social medias hiofoodbanks on all platforms where we will be sharing some of the findings over the next few weeks for Hunger Action Month.
Thank you for listening to Just a Bite. For resources mentioned in Today's show, visit ohiofoodbanks.org justabite and check the show notes for additional information.
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts, share the show with your network and join us next time for another discussion on issues impacting food and nutrition security in Ohio.
Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Just a Bite. I want to thank Audrey so much for joining us today and sharing some of the findings from the 2026 Hunger Study.
The full report is available now on our
[email protected] and you can also follow along on our social medias hiofoodbanks on all platforms where we will be sharing some of the findings over the next few weeks for Hunger Action Month.
Thank you for listening to Just a Bite. For resources mentioned in Today's show, visit ohiofoodbanks.org justabyte and check the show notes for additional information.
I hope you enjoyed today's conversation. Please subscribe to the podcast wherever you get your podcasts, share the show with your network and join us next time for another discussion on issues impacting food and nutrition security in Ohio.
