WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Supply chain issues continue to affect our communities statewide with delays of products and food. The Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, which serves millions, is seeing challenges in receiving food.

What You Need To Know

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina serves 18 counties

The food bank feeds two million people

The food bank is seeing a surge in people needing assistance

Eric Aft, the chief executive officer of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina, says the food on its shelves are barely keeping up with demand.

He says the food bank is seeing an upsurge of 20% of new people in need of assistance recently. The supply chain issues began in April 2020 for them. Aft says when the government assistance started to be distributed out, the need lessened some. But now, the food bank is struggling to find food sources with healthy options.

Over the last two years because of the pandemic the food bank has purchased more than $4 million of food a year, where before the pandemic it would purchase $400,000 of food.

“The difficulty that we face is that we need a continual supply of funds to make those purchases, because again the sourcing of food is very different then it was pre-pandemic. And we foresee that we are going to have to make food purchases at a very high volume for the next couple of years,” Aft said.

Aft says the price of food has gone up 25-30%, and the ordering of food has been delayed almost three months.

“We need to be sure that those who are maybe struggling due to the pandemic or job lost, health situaions, poverty, overall that we have food on hand, that we can get out through our network and get it to where it is needed most,” Aft said.

The food bank is looking for help from the community to donate food or money. The food bank supplies food to two million people in 18 counties. If you would like to donate you can click here.