Quick Take
Grocery prices and recent disruptions to federal food aid are pushing more Santa Cruz County residents to local food banks for the first time. Demand at some sites has doubled since early November. With staples like meat, eggs and even turkey seeing steep price hikes, families say they’re scaling back Thanksgiving plans and struggling to stay afloat despite working full time.
Grocery prices are still a major concern for households throughout Santa Cruz County, despite the return of federal food benefits following the reopening of the government. People struggling to put food on the table are flocking to food banks and pantries by the hundreds, and some say they’re skipping Thanksgiving because celebrating the holiday is too expensive.
During the first week of November, when the government shutdown paused critical food assistance for millions of households, lines for free groceries at food pantries at churches and nonprofit organizations in Santa Cruz County doubled. Second Harvest Food Bank was already preparing for a surge of new faces due to age and work restrictions that limited access to the federal nutrition assistance program known as SNAP starting Oct. 1.
Meanwhile, high prices for common grocery items like beef, coffee and milk are also driving county residents, many of whom say their income is too high to qualify for SNAP, to seek help at food pantries for the first time.
“You either have to be super, super poor, or you don’t get anything. There should be something in between, even if it’s something short-term, something that keeps you from the very bottom,” said Renee, a Santa Cruz single mother who was a newcomer at Santa Cruz Bible Church’s food pantry last week and withheld her last name to protect her family’s privacy. She said her income is too high to qualify for food aid, so she’s looking for a second job, but balancing longer work hours with child care is a challenge. She feels there isn’t enough support for people who are barely scraping by.
Between August 2024 and August 2025, food prices rose, on average, 3.1% nationally and 4.3% in the San Francisco Bay Area – the closest metropolitan area to Santa Cruz County – according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meat, poultry, fish and eggs saw the largest jump; the crucial protein items are 6.5% more expensive than they were last year, according to consumer price index data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Some common grocery items saw double-digit jumps. The prices of ground beef and steak rose nearly $1 per pound this year, and egg prices rose 24% on average, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Whole turkey, the traditional centerpiece of many holiday meals, is expected to be 40% more expensive this year than in 2024, due to outbreaks of avian influenza – aka bird flu – and higher demand.
There is a litany of reasons for higher grocery prices — climate change, animal diseases, increasing labor costs and political factors — depending on the specific food. On Friday, President Donald Trump announced that he would exempt tariffs on more than 200 grocery items, including beef, bananas, coffee and tea, in response to nationwide complaints about high prices at the supermarket.
Johanna Luke, a volunteer for the twice-weekly food pantry at Santa Cruz Bible Church in Santa Cruz, said the number of visitors doubled during the first week of November. “Some of them have never been to a food bank or food giveaway before, so we have to take them in hand and walk them through the process,” said Luke.
Last Thursday, pouring rain deterred some people from coming, but Luke estimated around 100 people showed up to the market-style event, where visitors choose from donated items to pack their own grocery bags. Since people often pick up for their whole household, that translates to about 400 people, she said. “The people that come out in the rain are the ones that we know desperately need food and they can’t get it anywhere else,” she said.
Last week, Marissa Hill visited the church’s food pantry for the first time with her mother, Amanda. They live with three other family members in Santa Cruz, but despite working full time at a retail job and pooling resources with her family, Hill struggles to pay for food.
“I work full time, and I get paid decently for what I do, and I have a great boss, but it’s not enough for the cost of food alone, even without rent,” said Hill. “It feels impossible right now.”
Their Thanksgiving celebration will be “very small” this year, because of the cost of groceries. Typically, Hill and her family members cook for other neighbors who have health issues and aren’t able to cook for themselves, but this year might be the first year when they aren’t able to help. “It’s terrible, because we really like doing that for our neighbors,” she said. “And this year, I feel like we need it the most, for morale and sanity – that’s something we don’t have as much of.”
Second Harvest is seeing an increase in demand “straight across the board” at all of the food bank’s distribution sites, said representative Luisa Olivares. In 2024, the food bank served more than 88,000 individuals during the Thanksgiving season and is anticipating more families seeking resources this year.
It was esthetician Heather Nicole’s first visit to a Santa Cruz Bible Church last week. Her husband injured his back two weeks earlier, she said, and won’t be able to work for three to six months. The disability payments fall far short of what they need to make ends meet, and their household income is too high to qualify for food aid. “We are screwed because we’re not poor enough to qualify for assistance,” she said.
She said she’s normally the person giving to food banks, not picking up, so visiting the pantry was a challenge for her. “I didn’t want to do stuff like this, but so many people kept reminding me that they do this to help people in this position,” she said. “You have to accept the help, but it’s hard when you’ve never been in that position before.”
Kevin Painchaud contributed to this report.
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