Battling hunger in the Mid South has gotten harder in the last year, a Mid-South Food Bank leader said, and it’s going to get even harder before it ever gets better.
Several forces converged over the last year to create the new, uphill battle, said Reginald Alexander, director of government and community relations for the Mid-South Food Bank. Food prices rose. Food assistance benefits to individuals were cut from the federal government. Food assistance programs to food banks were cut.
For the Food Bank, this meant buying more food at higher prices to serve an increasing number of people cut from those federal food programs.
Thousands of people in Shelby County and across Tennessee have lost Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits over the last year, according to our story last month.
New requirements in the President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill expanded work requirements and eliminated some exemptions altogether. Those changes cut nearly 18,000 people from SNAP rolls here over the last 12 months, and cut more than $4 million in spending here.
Demand at food banks has increased since the SNAP changes began. A recent survey by the Mid-South Food Bank found that 76 percent of the nearly 300 agencies served by the food bank saw increases in new visitors. The Food Bank serves 31 counties across West Tennessee, northern Mississippi, and eastern Arkansas.
We sat down with Alexander to talk about what the Food Bank is seeing across the region, how the SNAP changes are affecting families and food pantries, and what the organization is doing to meet the growing need. — Toby Sells
Memphis Flyer: Why is the need for food assistance increasing?
Reginald Alexander: I think the need is greater because prices are going up for everyone — gas prices, just general cost of living, and food prices.
I’ve talked to people who’ve said things just like what you said in your article, that they had to buy food or medicine, or food or utilities, or missing meals, telling their kids they can buy this, but we can’t buy that.
MF: How much food are you distributing?
Alexander: For fiscal year 2026, which just ended in June, we distributed about 27.5 million — almost 27.6 million pounds — of food to those counties. [We served about] 735,533 households. And that equates to about 22.9 million meals.
MF: What changed with SNAP?
Alexander: The changes in SNAP in July 2025 had to do with older adults. Mandatory work rules increased from 55 to 64. And so adults aged 55 to 64 had to work or train 20 hours a week to keep benefits past a three-month period. And able-bodied adults without dependents had a strict three-month limit in a three-year period unless they met the work rules.
MF: Are the additional requirements making it harder for people to get benefits?
Alexander: Yes, we saw a lot of people that didn’t meet the requirements.
MF: The Food Bank also helps people apply for SNAP. What are you seeing there?
Alexander: We have one SNAP representative here whose job it is to help people apply for SNAP. She goes out to different fairs and housing complexes, churches, and other organizations.
From January of this year to June, she did 404 applications. Of that 404, 65 were approved. That’s about 16.1 percent.
MF: How would you describe what’s happening overall?
Alexander: I would describe the situation as a serious case of churn where you just have a lot of things going on at one time. Changing requirements at the same time the need is increasing is creating a kind of a bottleneck situation.
It’s like any traffic accident you’ve ever witnessed. Cars are just going to back up because everybody’s trying to get past that bottleneck situation the accident has caused. As a result, every entity is trying to do the right thing, but it’s just becoming more backed up.
MF: SNAP reductions have an economic impact beyond the people receiving the benefits, right?
Alexander: People think about SNAP as just people getting money to help them buy food. But you have to remember, those people go to grocery stores and farmers markets that accept them, and they buy food.
They spend that money in stores, so these businesses are losing out.
MF: Is the Food Bank having to purchase more food itself?
Alexander: We have had to buy more food than normal. We’re advocating for increased amounts to the Emergency Food Assistance Program from the federal government. It’s a program that helps low-income individuals with free, American-grown food.
We get that food from the USDA, and then we distribute it to food pantries. The amount that we’ve gotten has been reduced greatly.
[The Tump Administration] canceled $500 million in discretionary funding for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, and that happened in 2025. So, that was meat, dairy, eggs, and produce that we were supposed to be getting from the federal government that was just canceled.
As a result, we’ve been trying to play catch-up ever since then. So it’s harder on the food banks. It did lead to us having to spend more money to purchase food ourselves.
MF: Do you expect things to improve anytime soon?
Alexander: Oh, no. No, not at all. If anything, unfortunately I think this is going to change for the worse. But we’re going continue to do what we do.
We’ve had to learn how to do more with less. So, if people donate and volunteer and we’re able to get more funding, both from individuals and from legislative endeavors, then we can meet the need.
But the need is always going to be there and we’ll just continue to do what we do.
