• About the Study
• Methodology
• Key Findings
• Who We Serve
• How We Serve
  • Agency Profiles
  • Agency Food Services
    • Boxes or Bags Distributed
    • Amount Served Last Open
  • Agency Capacity
  • Agency Resources
  • Food Banks
• Local Picture
• Snapshot Comparisons
• Media Center

Agency Food Services

In understanding the workings of the America's Second Harvest Network, it is important to understand the broad differences between providers in their scales of operations.  This chapter of Hunger in America 2006, discusses a number of indicators of the size of provider food service operations.  As will be seen, providers vary dramatically in size, from pantries that serve just a few clients a day to pantries and kitchens that provide food to hundreds of clients on a given day of operation.

There is great variation among providers in the detail with which they keep long-term records such as service and client counts.  Therefore, the analysis focuses on measures of size based on either a “typical week” or on the “most recent day the provider was open ,” since these are the size concepts that respondents were in general best able to relate to.