What is free food worth? A nonmarket valuation approach to estimating the welfare effects of food pantry services

Abstract

Food pantries provide groceries to millions of households in the United States every year. Although there is research and information on many other aspects of food pantries, including financial information such as tax valuations for donated food, there is not a literature establishing the economic value of food pantry access for clients and potential clients. We use a valuation approach from environmental economics, revealed preference travel cost modeling, in a novel application to estimate food pantry value. We use a rich administrative dataset from a food bank system in Colorado and estimate demand for pantry visits, exploiting the move of a local pantry to correct for endogeneity bias. We find that the annual value of pantry access to pantry client households is between $600 and $1000, and the value per pantry visit is between $40 and $60. If we assume these values hold nationally, our localized results imply that the collective value of food pantry access among pantry client households may be between $19 billion and $28 billion dollars annually.

The Association Between Hospital-Based Food Pantry Use and Subsequent Emergency Department Utilization Among Medicaid Patients With Diabetes

“…Additionally, it is possible that receiving food through the onsite food pantry may, in part, offset other household costs and mitigate other cost-related barriers to care (eg, medication adherence), which may ultimately reduce the need for ED visits. For example, one study found that the value of visiting a food pantry is around $40 to $60/ visit (Byrne Just, 2023), which is a significant portion of income, particularly for patients with Medicaid coverage, that could then be used on other basic necessities that impact health. Further, because the food pantry is located within a health care system, it is possible that individuals who accessed the food pantry were incentivized to come in for primary care visits at the same time, which could impact their future ED utilization.…”