Q. What is Philabundance?
A. Philabundance is a nonprofit organization founded in 1984, to reduce food waste and fight hunger in the Delaware Valley.  In 2005, Philabundance integrated its services with the Philadelphia Food Bank to become the region's largest nonprofit hunger relief organization.

Q. Where is Philabundance located?
A. Philabundance has three locations.  The main office is in South Philadelphia and  the other two locations are in North Philadelphia. 

Q. How does Philabundance help the hungry?
A. We provide food and resources through a network of agencies in the Delaware Valley.  Our member agencies include food cupboards, shelter or residential programs, social service agencies, emergency kitchens, and neighborhood and church distribution programs, who reach low income people in need. Philabundance provides food to approximately 65,000 people per week at an aggregate cost of less than 25 cents per meal.

Q. Does Philabundance sell food?
A. Philabundance does not re-sell any donated food. All food banks ask their agencies to contribute some of the costs of operation by assessing a small “shared maintenance fee” on the dry goods that we warehouse and distribute to our agencies. This fee averages 10¢ per pound while our costs of operation are almost 30¢ per pound and the market value of the food we distribute is over $1.50 per pound. By law, no individual client may be charged any amount whatsoever for food that has been donated for hunger relief. Philabundance monitors its agencies to insure that this never happens.Some key items are more in demand than donations provide so Philabundance does purchase some items and resells them at low prices to its agencies. If we can not sell product at prices lower than the market we simply don’t. Purchased foods make up less than 10% of our total volume.

Q. What areas does Philabundance serve?
A. We serve member agencies in 10 Delaware Valley counties including:  Bucks, Chester, Delaware, Montgomery, and Philadelphia Counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden, Gloucester, Mercer, and Salem Counties in New Jersey.

Q.  Doesn’t the federal government and the state government give assistance to the hungry?
A. Yes, the federal and state government does provide help to people living at or below the Federal Poverty Line (FPL).  However, the FPL doesn’t account for the qualifying poor who receive food stamps, but live above the poverty line, or the working poor who make too much to collect welfare, but who are not self sufficient. 

Philabundance continues to provide more and more food to the working poor and qualifying poor, who are finding it harder to pay the bills and put food on the table.

Q. How do you know what food people need?
A. Philabundance identifies the types of food that the community needs through feedback from our member agencies.  The food includes core products that most households or food assistance establishments use on a regular basis with an emphasis on quality foods that promote good health in all populations that we serve. Then we strategize to secure enough of it to meet the demands in the community. 

Q. How does Philabundance get food?
A. National and local food manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, brokers and food distributors donate food to Philabundance. These products, including packaged, canned, perishable and non-perishable foods, meet all food safety and nutrition standards.

In order to provide the much-needed products Philabundance also purchases bulk quantities of staple foods and basic supplies at wholesale prices. For more information about donating food please click here.  

Q. What happens to donated food?
A. Food goes to our warehouses, where it is sorted, labeled and stored for repacking and distribution.

Q. How is the food distributed?
A. Food is distributed in two ways.  Our trucks deliver to the agencies or the agencies pick-up the product at our warehouses on designated days. 

Q. How much food is distributed?
A. In fiscal year 2007, we distributed 17 million pounds of food in our service area and exported 6 million pounds of surplus food to assist other area food banks.   

Q. Can the hungry get food directly from Philabundance?
A. Most of the food is distributed to the community through our member agencies. The Fresh For All program puts good quality, fresh fruits and vegetables directly into the hands of those who need it every week at designated locations. If you or someone you know needs emergency food assistance, please click here to locate food programs in your community.