New data shows the strain rising food costs are having on Floridians, particularly families.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard out there with the prices going up,\u201d said shopper Carol O\u2019Neill after paying over $500 dollars for groceries Wednesday. \u201cWe\u2019ve never paid that high,\u201d said O\u2019Neill. \u201cIt\u2019s not good.\u201d<\/p>\n
O\u2019Neill\u2019s sentiment reflects how many Floridians are feeling about high food costs, recent data shows.<\/p>\n
A new poll released by No Kid Hungry Florida in partnership with Aspect Strategic found that:<\/p>\n
82% of Floridians say the cost of food is rising faster than their income.<\/p>\n
47% of Florida families had to choose between buying nutritious food for the household and paying for gas, a car repair or transportation.<\/p>\n
49% of Floridians with a child 18 or younger in their household report skipping meals or eating less.<\/p>\n
70% of Floridians say their financial situation has suffered in the past 12 months due to the cost of food.<\/p>\n
No Relief for Floridians as Food Costs Rise, Forcing Trade-Offs – Florida<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cThere are some things that we pass on when we go by because the price is just doubled or tripled,\u201d said O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\n President and CEO of Feeding Northeast Florida food bank, Susan King says there are over 300,000 people facing food insecurity in Northeast Florida, and they\u2019ve seen an increase of families needing food in the last year.<\/p>\n \u201cSince January through April of 2025 compared to April 2026, we\u2019ve seen more than a 17% increase in the number of households we\u2019re serving. We\u2019ve also seen a 16% increase in the number of pounds we\u2019ve distributed just in those four months,\u201d said King. \u201cIt\u2019s hitting everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n As for Carol O\u2019Neill, she plans to continue shopping strategically.<\/p>\n \u201cYou have to look around, shop the sales, and see what kind of good deals you can get.\u201d<\/p>\n King says they just conducted their own survey recently with their partners and found that 60% of them reported seeing new people in their food distribution lines.<\/p>\n King also notes that with school being out for the summer, they expect to see an increase in people needing food in the next few weeks.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New data shows the strain rising food costs are having on Floridians, particularly families. \u201cIt\u2019s hard out there…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,292393,101,292395,181163,24136,292396,14308,27107,143077,292394],"class_list":["post-669886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-carol-oneill","tag-economy","tag-florida-families","tag-floridians","tag-food-insecurity","tag-kid-hungry-florida","tag-northeast-florida","tag-nutritious-food","tag-oneill","tag-susan-king"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}