More than one of every five people in Alabama lives in poverty and has difficulty meeting basic nutritional needs. At the same time, enormous quantities of donated food are available from the food industry. The food bank serves as a clearinghouse, which receives and stores truckloads of food and then distributes it in manageable quantities to the programs that serve people in need. Often the reason is overproduction or inventory control. Other reasons include packaging errors, changes in product formulas, expiring coupons, or approaching sell-by dates.
Food also is donated by the public through community food drives.
The food bank strictly adheres to Health Department guidelines assuring that all the distributed food is safe and wholesome. Hundreds of non-profit human service agencies receive food from the food banks. These include church pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, hospice programs, low-income day care centers and senior nutritional programs. Nearly 30 million pounds of food were distributed in 1999, saving agencies millions of dollars in food purchase costs. No, food comes into the food banks in truckload quantities and is distributed to member agencies.