Food Bank, grocers fight hunger

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Feed the Need

Feed the Need is a partnership of The News & Observer, the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina and sponsoring businesses. Together, we are raising awareness about hunger, collecting nonperishable food for hungry people and generating cash donations to support the Food Bank's work.

Here's the 2009 Feed the Need schedule: Feed the Need Food Drive, Wednesday, April 1 Saturday, April 18 Donate food at Feed the Need bins at Harris Teeter stores throughout the region. Virtual food drive and contributions Click here to donate food or money online. Feed the Need Day, Saturday, April 18 Buy a special $1 Feed the Need edition of The N&O from volunteers at area Bojangles', freestanding Starbucks and Harris Teeter stores. We’ll donate 75 cents of each paper sold directly to the Food Bank.

You can help make Feed the Need a success, and help ensure that no one goes hungry our region.

An event for every taste

Triangle residents, including schoolchildren, musicians, business owners and restaurateurs, are coming up with ways to help the people of the Haiti recover from the earthquake.

Here are a few of the opportunities for contributing:

Special events

Generosity races against hunger

More people are poor and hungry this year because of the recession, and even though area charities say they are seeing a more generous spirit, donations are unlikely to keep up with demand.

The Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina has seen requests for food rise by 30 percent to 60 percent in the 34 counties it serves, said Peter Werbicki, president and CEO of the food bank.

Demand is being driven by the loss of jobs. Only two of the counties the food bank serves had unemployment rates in the double digits in July 2008, Werbicki said. A year later, 23 counties had double-digit unemployment. And last week, the federal government put the national unemployment rate at 10.2 percent, the highest level in 26 years.

In-house brands are Kroger's edge

Ice cream swooshes out of metal nozzles and swirls into 38,000 "party pails" per day here, one of many ways Kroger is using its substantial manufacturing capability to feed growing demand for low-price store brands.

Kroger is selling 15 percent more in-house products by volume this year, including these four-quart tubs of ice cream, which cost as little as $2.99 at Kroger grocery chains such as Ralphs and Fry's. National-brand ice creams go for at least four times as much, a contrast that bargain-hunters like Briana Carter, 30, of Tipton, Ind., appreciate.

"Unless it is a name brand that they just really like, a lot of people are going to stay with the store brands," Carter said.

Grocers add fuel to compete

For Triangle shoppers, shopping at Costco, Sam's and BJ's is a convenient way to get mega-sized bottles of laundry detergent and a full tank of gas in one stop.

But the area's traditional grocers are pumping up for the competition themselves, adding their own pumps and offering their own gas discounts.

Kroger, for instance, is adding pumps to its store at Creedmoor and Lynn roads in Raleigh. When it opens on April 19, it will be the fourth Kroger in the area to provide the service..