Mid-Ohio Food Collective boosts capacity with new freezer to meet rising demand

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) — It is Hunger Action Month and the Mid-Ohio Food Collective provides millions of meals each year to fight hunger.

So, why would the foodbank turn food donations away? Well, it’s a capacity problem that is about to be solved as the Food Collective is about to go into the deep freeze.

“Last year we distributed over 84 million pounds of food, which is enough for more than 190,000 meals every single day,” said Mike Hochron of Mid-Ohio Food Collective.

Need is up, demand is up 30%, so imagine the frustration when the Mid-Ohio Food Collective had to turn food away because of a lack of freezer space. But now, the organization has 19,000 square feet of freezer.

“This room is going to expand our freezer capacity almost 30% and we expect, over the course of a year, once it’s up and running, we’ll be able to distribute about two million additional pounds of frozen food,” said Hochron.

The Franklin County commissioners made it possible with a $7 million grant, part of the county’s COVID dollars. The freezer will be packed, thanks in part to donations from Kroger.

“We’re talking about produce, we’re talking about bakery, we’re talking about meat, anything in a store that might be just past its sell-by date, but it’s still a good food item, that can go and feed someone that’s hungry.”

Kroger donated 1.9 million pounds of food last year in 2023, in the Mid-Ohio Food Collective area.

“As a company, we’ve donated more than 3 billion meals to different organizations all across the Kroger company because this is what we’re all about,” said Mark Bruce. “We are all about making sure people are fed.”

Meat is the number one most requested family food item.

“Because it’s so expensive and everyone knows it’s an important part of a family’s dinner table,” said Hochron. “But we’ll also be able to have dairy, frozen fruits and vegetables, sometimes for prepared meals, pasta, those sorts of things, things that we’ll be able to freeze, get to families to make sure that it’s fresh and high quality when it hits their dinner table.”

Every meal for a family, a hungry child, a senior citizen, maybe your neighbor.

“There’s so many people in our community that are one bad day, one bad week away from needing help to meet the most basic need, which is feeding themselves and their families,” said Hochron.

The freezer is in the center of the Mid-Ohio Food Collective warehouse. It should be fully operational in a matter of weeks.

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