Exploring Healthy Food Access Among Rural Food Pantries in North Carolina

Background

Food pantries contribute substantially to the diets of individuals living in rural food-insecure households and can play a role in improving diet quality. Yet, rural food pantries face challenges in acquiring healthy food to distribute to patrons.

Objective

Explore the barriers and facilitators to acquiring healthy foods and implementing healthy food guidelines at rural food pantries.

Study Design, Settings, Participants

Researchers recruited staff from food pantries through purposive and snowball sampling in eight rural counties in North Carolina. Twenty-one semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted via phone or in-person from June to November, 2024.

Measurable Outcome/Analysis

In-depth interviews were transcribed verbatim and independently coded using a thematic analysis approach based on the five dimensions of food access framework (availability, accessibility, affordability, acceptability, and accommodation).

Results

Participants were mostly female (90.5%) and African American (52.4%) food pantry staff (13.9 ± 9.9 average years of work experience). Food pantry staff reported that seasonality, lack of storage and equipment constrained fresh produce availability. Pantries were predominantly accessible via a drive-through model, located within the county seat, with healthy food affordability dictated by regional food bank offerings and local grocery store donations. Food pantry staff felt that donation quality was often poor, and there was little opportunity to accommodate client’s food requests due to the pantries being volunteer-led and heavily reliant on donations. Pantry staff strived to create a healthy pantry environment by respecting patrons and avoiding stigma. However, few implemented written healthy food guidelines nor provided nutrition education.

Conclusions

These findings dimensionalize constraints experienced by rural North Carolina food pantries as they seek to provide healthy food options and the lack of written nutrition guidelines. Community partnerships that increase access to fresh, quality foods and financial support for storage, equipment, and staffing may be needed to overcome these barriers.

Funding

CDC