The unexpected closure of two specialty grocers last month is having an impact on some local food pantries.
Care For Real is a food pantry that has been serving Chicago’s Far North Side neighborhoods and has seen a significant spike in the number of people they serve in recent years.
“In our fiscal year that ended in 2020, we served about 2,900 individuals, but in our fiscal year that ended this last March, we served over 12,000. So the need for food assistance just continues to soar,” Gregory Gross, executive director of Care For Real told NBC Chicago.
When Dom’s Kitchen and Market and Foxtrot suddenly closed last month, it was a big blow to the organization.
“Dom’s Market, we would pick up there almost every day of the week,” Gross said. “Last year, Dom’s donated some 52,000 pounds of food to us. Which was a great supplement to what we get from the Greater Chicago Food Depository, and the food we would get are things [like] prepacked food and that was a great assistant to our folks who are unhoused.”
In the stores, food still sits on the shelves, with most of the perishable items likely having gone to waste.
The Greater Chicago Food Depository, which delivers food items to more than 800 pantries, soup kitchens and shelters, is hoping to save non-perishable items, though they’ve had no luck in reaching the owners.
NBC Chicago has also yet to receive a response from Outfox Hospitality.
“It pains us as a food bank to see unused and unclaimed food sitting on shelves when we have such a hunger crisis in the community,” Man-Yee Lee of the Greater Chicago Food Depository said.
Care For Real says it is going to focus on finding new retail partners, businesses or individuals who want to help those facing food insecurity.
“We appreciate anyone who can step up to help us right now,” Gross said.