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      US wine importers and bars nervously wait for tariff decision: ‘It’s a sad situation’

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      As the threat of exorbitant US tariffs on European alcohol imports looms, a warehouse in the French port city of Le Havre awaits a delivery of more than 1,000 cases of wine from a dozen boutique wineries across the country.Under normal circumstances, Randall Bush, the founder of Loci Wine in Chicago, would have already arranged with his European partners to gather these wines in Le Havre, the last stop before they are loaded into containers and shipped across the Atlantic. But these wines won’t be arriving stateside anytime soon.After the Trump administration threatened on 13 March to impose 200% tariffs on alcoholic products from Europe, many US importers like Bush have halted all outgoing shipments from Europe.The 1,100 cases of his wine, from family-owned producers in his company’s modest European portfolio, have already been paid for. But due to the tariff threat, they will remain stranded at their respective domaines at least until 2 April when the Trump administration is expected to reveal a “reciprocal tariff number” for each of its global trading partners.The newfound uncertainty around tariffs has many restaurant owners, beverage directors, liquor distributors and wine importers on edge in recent weeks. The only certainty among the trade professionals interviewed is that a 200% tariff would be catastrophic for the wine and spirits industry globally. And while most believe the actual number will end up much lower, everyone agrees that even modest tariffs would send shock waves throughout the entire food and beverage ecosystem, weakening distribution channels and further driving up already astronomical prices.“What scares me is how these hypothetical tariffs would affect [the many] European-themed restaurants like French bistros, Italian trattorias and German beer halls,” said Richard Hanauer, wine director and partner with Lettuce Entertain You. The Chicago-based group owns, manages and licenses more than 130 restaurants and 60 brands in a dozen different states and Washington DC. Hanauer predicts that concept-driven eateries that rely on European products would have to source wine and spirits from other regions because “the consumer is not going to accept the markup”.Even though Trump has been known to walk back dubious claims about tariffs before, the wine and spirits industry is taking this recent threat very seriously. Most American importers, such as Loci’s Bush, are adhering to the US Wine Trade Alliance’s (USWTA) guidance issued in mid-March warning its members to cease wine shipments from Europe. Without guarantees that any potential tariffs would come with a notice period or exemptions for wines shipped prior to their announcement, the organization had no choice but to advise its constituents to halt all EU wine shipments.“Once the wine is on the water, we have no power,” said Bush. “We’re billed by our shippers as soon as the wine arrives.”Tariffs are import taxes incurred by the importer and paid as a percentage of the value of the freight at the point of entry upon delivery. Since shipments from Europe can often take up to six to eight weeks to arrive, firms like Loci face the predicament of not knowing how much they will owe to take delivery of their products when they reach US ports.“We’ve had many US importers tell us that even a 50% unplanned tariff could bankrupt their businesses, so we felt we had no choice,” said Benjamin Aneff, president of the USWTA, of the organization’s injunction. “It’s a sad situation. These are mostly small, family-owned businesses.”Europe’s wineries can also ill afford to be dragged into a trade war with the United States. According to the International Trade Center, the US comprises almost 20% of the EU’s total wine exports, accounting for a total of $14.1bn (€13.1bn) of exported beverage, spirit and vinegar products from the EU in 2024.Many independent importers still recall Trump levying $7.5bn of tariffs on exports from the EU during his first presidency, which included 25% duties on Scotch whiskey, Italian cheeses, certain French wines and other goods. These retaliatory measures, which took effect in October 2019, resulted from a years-long trade dispute between the US and the EU over airline subsidies.“We were hit with duties in late 2019. But we negotiated with a lot of our suppliers, so we were able to stave off any significant price increases,” said André Tamers, the founder of De Maison Selections, a fine-wine importer with a large portfolio of French and Spanish wines and spirits. But because the Covid-19 pandemic hit shortly thereafter, Tamers admitted, it was difficult to gauge the impact of the first round of Trump tariffs. The Biden administration eventually rescinded the measures in June 2021.To pre-empt any potentially disastrous news on the tariff front, many restaurants and bars are ramping up inventory purchases to the extent that their budgets allow. “We made some large commitments for rosé season,” said Grant Reynolds, co-founder of Parcelle, which has an online wine shop as well as two bars and a bricks-and-mortar retail outlet in Manhattan. “To whatever we can reasonably afford, we’ve decided to secure those commitments sooner than later so that we can better weather the storm.”The same is true for many cocktail-focused bars around the country, which are looking to shore up supplies of popular spirits that could end up a victim of tariffs, including allocated scotches and rare cognacs.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“If it becomes very apparent that these tariffs are going to go live, we could be looking at dropping close to $100,000 on inventory just to insulate ourselves because it will save us so much money over the next six months,” said Deke Dunne, beverage director of Washington DC’s award-winning cocktail bar Allegory. “It will have to be a game-time decision, though, because the last thing I want to do is to buy up a lot of inventory I don’t need.” Hanauer said that he’s seen some vendors offering wine buyers heavy discounts and incentives to stockpile cases of European products to prepare for the possibility of onerous tariffs.One bar owner feeling a little less panic compared with his industry counterparts is Fred Beebe, co-owner of Post Haste, a sustainability-minded cocktail bar in Philadelphia. Since it opened in 2023, Post Haste eschews imported spirits of any kind; the bar is stocked exclusively with US products from east of the Mississippi River. “We always thought it would be advantageous to have our producers close to us for environmental reasons and to support the local economy,” said Beebe, “but we didn’t necessarily think that it would also benefit from fluctuations in distribution or global economic policy.”Instead of serving popular European liquor brands such as Grey Goose vodka or Hendrick’s gin, the bar highlights local craft distillers such as Maggie’s Farm in Pittsburgh, which produces a domestic rum made from Louisiana sugar cane. After the recent tariff threats, Beebe says, the decision to rely on local products has turned out to be fortuitous. “I feel really bad for anyone who is running an agave-based program, a tequila or mezcal bar,” said Beebe. “They must be worried constantly about whether the price of all of their products are going to go up by 25% to 50%.”On the importing side, there is agreement that this is an inopportune moment for the wine industry to face new headwinds. Wine consumption has steadily declined in the United States in recent years as gen Z and millennial consumers are turning to cannabis, hard seltzers and spirits such as tequila, or simply embracing sobriety in greater numbers.“Unfortunately, the reality is that wine consumption was already down before this compared to what it was five years ago,” said Reynolds. “This obviously doesn’t help that. So, with more tariffs, you would start to see a greater shift of behaviors away from drinking wine.”But despite slumping sales and the impending tariff threats, niche importers like Tamers say they have little choice but to stay the course. “You leave yourself vulnerable, but if you don’t buy wine, then you don’t have any wine to sell. So, it’s a double-edged sword,” he said. “Our customers are still asking for these products, so there’s not much else we can do.”Aneff hopes that commonsense negotiations will lead to both parties divorcing alcohol tariffs from other trade disputes over aluminum, steel and digital services.“I do have some hope for a potential sectoral agreement on wine, and perhaps spirits, which would benefit domestic producers and huge numbers of small businesses on both sides of the Atlantic,” he said. “I can’t think of anything that would bring more joy to people’s glasses than ensuring free trade on wine.” More

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      in Elections

      Care About Food Waste? In Massachusetts, You Can Be a Compost Consultant.

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      America has a food waste problem: Rotten tomatoes and pizza boxes end up in trash dumps and produce a potent planet-heating gas called methane.Massachusetts has a fix: A state regulation requires businesses to keep food out of dumpsters. To help them comply, the state offers a carrot, in the form of a chatty, practical, 63-year-old hand-holding food-waste-reduction consultant named Heather Billings.Which is how, on a frigid Wednesday morning, Ms. Billings found herself poking around the narrow kitchen of the Port Tavern, a sports bar in Newburyport, Mass.An owner of the Port Tavern, Abbie Hannan, left, invited Ms. Billings to look at how the restaurant managed its waste.She quickly spotted a very solvable problem at the prep cook’s station: a 23-gallon trash can into which went tomato tops and other food scraps.Then came the dumpster inspection. Could anything in there go to compost?Ms. Billings, a consultant contracted by the state government, took notes, snapped pictures and peered behind the bar to assess where the lemon wedges and plastic olive skewers ended up.She had some easy fixes for Port Tavern’s co-owner Abbie Hannan. She proposed inexpensive, four-gallon plastic buckets to nest inside the bigger trash bins to collect food scraps. She connected Ms. Hannan to compost haulers and a charity that could pick up leftover edible food.Tell Us About Solutions Where You Live

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      West Virginia Bans 7 Artificial Food Dyes, Citing Health Concerns

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      At least 20 other states are considering bills restricting the use of certain food dyes and additives.In the most sweeping move of its kind, West Virginia has banned foods containing most artificial food dyes and two preservatives, citing their potential health risks.The legislation, signed into law Monday by Gov. Patrick Morrisey, will go into effect in 2028. At least 20 states are considering similar restrictions on food chemicals, but West Virginia is the first to ban virtually all artificial dyes from foods sold statewide. The new law will also prohibit products containing the dyes from being served in school meals starting this August.“Everybody realizes that we’ve got to do something about food in general,” said Adam Burkhammer, a Republican state representative who introduced the bill in February. It quickly passed both legislative houses with broad bipartisan support. Mr. Burkhammer said he hopes the law will improve the health of children in his state and spur other states to take similar actions.California has passed similar measures, though they were narrower in scope. One, passed in 2023, banned four food additives statewide. And in 2024, state lawmakers banned artificial food dyes from school meals.Jennifer Pomeranz, an associate professor of public health policy and management at New York University, said the California measures likely led state lawmakers to realize they could move faster than the Food and Drug Administration to act on food additives that carried health concerns.She added that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was confirmed as health secretary last month and has spoken frequently of his concerns about food dyes, has also brought more attention to the issue. Earlier this month, at a meeting with executives from large food companies including PepsiCo and General Mills, Mr. Kennedy said that it was an “urgent priority” to eliminate artificial dyes from foods and drinks sold nationwide. At another meeting, he encouraged people to call Gov. Morrissey in support of the West Virginia law.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Administration Delays Requirement for Companies to Track Tainted Food

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      A law passed in 2011 required food companies to track food in the event of contamination and a recall. The administration delayed the move, set to take effect next year, for 30 months.The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday that it would delay by 30 months a requirement that food companies and grocers rapidly trace contaminated food through the supply chain and pull it off the shelves.Intended to “limit food-borne illness and death,” the rule required companies and individuals to maintain better records to identify where foods are grown, packed, processed or manufactured. It was set to go into effect in January 2026 as part of a landmark food safety law passed in 2011, and was advanced during President Trump’s first term.Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health secretary, has expressed interest in chemical safety in food, moving to ban food dyes and on Thursday debuting a public database where people can track toxins in foods. But other actions in the first months of the Trump administration have undercut efforts to tackle bacteria and other contaminants in food that have sickened people. The administration’s cutbacks included shutting down the work of a key food-safety committee and freezing the spending on credit cards of scientists doing routine tests to detect pathogens in food.There were several high-profile outbreaks in recent years, including the cases last year linked to deadly listeria in Boar’s Head meat and E. coli in onions on McDonald’s Quarter Pounders.The postponement raised alarms among some advocacy organizations on Thursday.“This decision is extremely disappointing and puts consumers at risk of getting sick from unsafe food because a small segment of the industry pushed for delay, despite having 15 years to prepare,” said Brian Ronholm, director of food policy at Consumer Reports, an advocacy group.Many retailers have already taken the steps to comply with the rule. Still, trade groups for the food industry lobbied to delay implementation of the rule in December, according to The Los Angeles Times.In a letter to President Trump in December, food makers and other corporate trade groups cited a number of regulations that they said were “strangling our economy.” They asked for the food traceability rule to be pared back and delayed.“This is a huge step backward for food safety,” said Sarah Sorscher, director of regulatory affairs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group. “What’s so surprising about it is this was a bipartisan rule.”Ms. Sorscher said there was broad support for the measure, since it would protect consumers and businesses, which could limit the harm, the reputational damage and the cost of a food recall with a high-tech supply chain. More

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      in US Politics

      Local food for schools helps farmers and kids. So why is Trump cutting funding?

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      “If you happened to smell hickory smoke in the city this week, we were probably to blame,” the North Little Rock school district’s child nutrition program shared in a 30 January Facebook post featuring a picture of the day’s lunch.The locally sourced menu included school-smoked chopped beef, pulled pork, fresh apples and coleslaw. This isn’t standard cafeteria fare, but funds from the US government helped kids in this Arkansas town get fresh, nourishing foods produced by farmers and ranchers in their own community.Menus like this might be a thing of the past come next school year. On 7 March, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) notified states of the withdrawal of $1bn in taxpayer dollars that states used to contract with local producers, effectively ending these and other innovative programs. School districts like that of North Little Rock were counting on these funds to plan menus for the next school year. Now, with just five months to go, the funding has been abruptly rescinded.As someone who has spent my entire career working in school food and now serves as the senior director of programs and policy for the National Farm to School Network, I know the best way to ensure that American children receive a nourishing school lunch every day is to expand federal support for community-based food producers.I know first-hand the impact of investing in local food for schools. Living in Arkansas with my two little girls – who attend public school and participate in the school meal program – I see how vital these programs are for the health and wellbeing of our kids, economy and communities. Thanks to the growth of the farm-to-school movement, the North Little Rock lunch-tray experience is becoming more and more common across the country.While I faced empty shelves at my local Kroger early in the pandemic, supply-chain shortages affected school cafeterias in unimaginable ways. Meeting nutrition regulations became nearly impossible as basic staples like fresh produce and milk suddenly became unavailable, leaving school nutrition professionals scrambling to provide balanced meals. Food insecurity surged as communities relied more heavily on school meals, yet the systems in place to meet that need were breaking down. In response to these unprecedented challenges, schools across the country began to turn to local sources for food like never before – partnering directly with farmers to keep meals coming and meet community needs.The food supply chain has still not fully recovered from the disruptive effects of the pandemic, and growing challenges such as bird flu and labor uncertainties exacerbate the problem. Schools and the communities they serve want to serve good, locally grown and prepared food, but taking the programs from activities like an occasional taste-test of apples from a nearby orchard to a full transformation of menus away from ultra-processed foods and big food manufacturers is going to require more support. It’s going to require investments like the Local Food for Schools Program.In 2021, an incredibly effective solution arose to both feed schoolchildren well and support (mostly rural) American farmers: the Commodity Credit Corporation’s Local Food for Schools Program. That initial $200m investment went directly through states and into local farms across the country specifically for school meals. The next round of $660m was intended to expand to include early childcare programs.The program was successful, an investment of our tax dollars right back into our communities. US farmers typically earn 15.9 cents for every dollar spent on food. But when schools purchase directly from farmers, 100% of every dollar goes to farmers. And now a program that provided critical support has been canceled in the name of government efficiency.John Wahrmund, a friend of mine and third-generation beef farmer in rural Arkansas, benefited from the Local Food for Schools Program. Selling to schools became a new and vital market for his farm. To meet demand, Wahrmund invested tens of thousands of dollars in processing and refrigeration equipment to ensure his high-quality, grass-fed beef fit the strict regulations for selling to schools.View image in fullscreenNow those sales will end. Without the kickstart these funds provide, cash-strapped schools are forced to go back to the cheapest products because local farmers are easily undercut by multinational food companies. When I called Wahrmund to ask how he was holding up, he told me: “[The Local Food for Schools Program] is everything for my sales. Without this, it will literally shut me down. I have focused solely on schools.”He has been driving across Arkansas, not just the North Little Rock school district but from Fayetteville to Hope, to get his beef into school cafeterias. “It will be over – not just with me, but with all the farmers trying to serve the school lunch program. Not just beef [producers], rice, vegetables, all of it.”The National School Lunch Program has always been tied to the fate of farmers in our country. Of the National School Lunch Act of 1946, which created the program, then president Harry Truman said: “In the long view, no nation is any healthier than its children or more prosperous than its farmers; and in the National School Lunch Act, the Congress has contributed immeasurably both to the welfare of our farmers and the health of our children.”At a 23 January nomination hearing to Congress, Brooke Rollins, who is now the secretary of the Department of Agriculture, stated that she aimed to support rural communities, bolster domestic markets and ensure that nutrition programs are efficient. Just last week, she and the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F Kennedy Jr, moved forward with “Make America healthy again” (Maha) commitments to “create and implement policies that promote healthy choices, healthy families and healthy outcomes”.The Local Food for Schools program was exactly that kind of policy. It was more than just fresh thinking. It was a proven, common-sense investment that gave farmers and school nutrition programs a vital boost.March is when farmers plan their next growing season, and when school food professionals set their menus. Now, without this funding, farmers like Wahrmund may go out of business, and school food programs – already operating on razor-thin margins of an average of $1.40 per tray – will struggle to provide nourishing meals to students who rely on them every day. Arkansas, the most food-insecure state in the nation, stood to receive over $8m of the funds. With working families already struggling with rising food costs, eliminating this support is not just shortsighted – it’s harmful.This funding wasn’t government inefficiency or a liberal scheme; it was an investment in our children’s health, our farmers’ livelihoods and the resilience of our communities. Rolling back this support isn’t just a mistake; it betrays every principle of public health and supporting farmers, America’s first entrepreneurs and essential workers. As Rollins said to Fox News this week: “If we are making mistakes, we will own those mistakes and we will reconfigure.” Rollins herself has identified “creat[ing] new opportunities to connect America’s farmers to nutrition assistance programs” in her vision for the agriculture department.The USDA continues to assess its programs and funding. It must correct course and reinstate this vital funding, but it must do so immediately. Speaking on behalf of 20,000-plus National Farm to School Network members from across the US, I ask Rollins to restore this robust local foods market program and transform school food so that meals like that North Little Rock lunch can become the norm. More

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      in Elections

      Food Safety Jeopardized by Onslaught of Funding and Staff Cuts

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      The Trump administration halted some food testing and shut down a committee studying bacteria in infant formula. Earlier funding cutbacks under the Biden administration now threaten state labs and inspectors.In the last few years, foodborne pathogens have had devastating consequences that alarmed the public. Bacteria in infant formula sickened babies. Deli meat ridden with listeria killed 10 people and led to 60 hospitalizations in 19 states. Lead-laden applesauce pouches poisoned young children.In each outbreak, state and federal officials connected the dots from each sick person to a tainted product and ensured the recalled food was pulled off the shelves.Some of those employees and their specific roles in ending outbreaks are now threatened by Trump administration measures to increase government efficiency, which come on top of cuts already being made by the Food and Drug Administration’s chronically underfunded food division.Like the food safety system itself, the cutbacks and new administrative hurdles are spread across an array of federal and state agencies.At the Food and Drug Administration, freezes on government credit card spending ordered by the Trump administration have impeded staff members from buying food to perform routine tests for deadly bacteria. In states, a $34 million cut by the F.D.A. could reduce the number of employees who ensure that tainted products — like tin pouches of lead-laden applesauce sold in 2023 — are tested in labs and taken off store shelves. F.D.A. staff members are also bracing for further Trump administration personnel reductions.And at the Agriculture Department, a committee studying deadly bacteria was recently disbanded, even as it was developing advice on how to better target pathogens that can shut down the kidneys. Committee members were also devising an education plan for new parents on bacteria that can live in powdered infant formula. “Further work on your report and recommendations will be prohibited,” read a Trump administration email to the committee members.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Joan Dye Gussow, Pioneer of Eating Locally, Is Dead at 96

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      An indefatigable gardener, she was concerned, a colleague said, with “all the things that have to happen for us to get our food.”Joan Dye Gussow, a nutritionist and educator who was often referred to as the matriarch of the “eat locally, think globally” food movement, died on Friday at her home in Piermont, N.Y., in Rockland County. She was 96.Her death, from congestive heart failure, was announced by Pamela A. Koch, an associate professor of nutrition education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where Ms. Gussow, a professor emeritus, had taught for more than half a century.Ms. Gussow was one of the first in her field to emphasize the connections between farming practices and consumers’ health. Her book “The Feeding Web: Issues in Nutritional Ecology” (1978) influenced the thinking of writers including Michael Pollan and Barbara Kingsolver.“Nutrition is thought of as the science of what happens to food once it gets in our bodies — as Joan put it, ‘What happens after the swallow,’” Ms. Koch said in an interview.But Ms. Gussow beamed her gimlet-eyed attention on what happens before the swallow. “Her concern was with all the things that have to happen for us to get our food,” Ms. Koch said. “She was about seeing the big picture of food issues and sustainability.”Ms. Gussow, an indefatigable gardener and a tub-thumper for community gardens, began deploying the phrase “local food” after reviewing the statistics on the declining number of farmers in the United States. (Farm and ranch families made up less than 5 percent of the population in 1970 and less than 2 percent of the population in 2023.)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘It’s been a lifesaver’: millions risk going hungry as Republicans propose slashing food stamps

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      During a recent grocery store visit, Audrey Gwenyth spent $159.01 on items such as eggs, Greek yogurt, edamame snaps, bagels, chia seeds, brownie mix, oatmeal, milk, cilantro rice and pork sausage. The entire bill was paid via her electronic benefit transfer, or EBT, card, which is how recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), pay for groceries at participating stores, farmers markets and restaurants.“Because I’m a single mom and I don’t receive child support, I don’t have a lot of help in the world,” said Gwenyth, a mother of two toddlers, whose food budget is around $100 per week. She shares many of her EBT purchases on social media to help others make the most of their benefits. “I could not pay for food if it wasn’t for EBT. It’s been a lifesaver.”In the US, more than one in eight households say they have difficulty getting enough food. Snap, formerly known as food stamps, helps more than 42 million people fill those gaps, and is considered the country’s most effective tool to fight hunger. But now, the USDA-run program is facing attacks from House Republicans who see deep cuts as a way to pay for an extension of the 2017 tax bill that benefits the very wealthy.On Tuesday night, the House narrowly passed a budget resolution that called for $4.5tn in tax cuts and a $2tn cut in mandatory spending, which includes programs such as Snap and Medicaid.While it is unknown exactly how much would be slashed from Snap, some estimates say funding could be reduced by at least 20%. The House budget resolution enables committees to cut $230bn from the agriculture committee over 10 years in order to help extend tax cuts for the top 1%, according to the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.This means the millions who rely on Snap would receive less help, and many of them could lose assistance altogether, even amid rising food costs and inflation.“Hunger and poverty aren’t going to stop because you cut a program,” said Gina Plata-Nino, Snap’s deputy director at the Food Research & Action Center (Frac). “The price of food keeps going up, things are more expensive, people are concerned about tariffs in terms of consumer goods and people relying on these benefits will not have any recourse.”Cuts could be made by limiting how people use Snap, removing benefits from those who lose their jobs and arbitrarily capping maximum benefits. Congress could also convert Snap into a block grant and have states pay a portion of benefits, which could limit access to assistance at a time when families are struggling already.Anti-hunger groups are especially alarmed about proposed alterations to the Thrifty Food Plan, which the USDA uses to determine benefit amounts and the annual cost of living of living adjustment, or Cola. One Republican proposal would cut $150bn from the program by limiting Thrifty Food Plan updates, which means benefits would be slashed for every American using Snap, affecting one in five kids in the US.Republicans have sent mixed signals. The House agriculture chair GT Thompson (Republican of Pennsylvania) said last week there would be no Snap cuts in reconciliation or the upcoming farm bill. But other Republicans have signaled openness to this, and critics of the budget resolution question how lawmakers could possibly chop $230bn without affecting Snap.Even before cuts, the current average Snap benefit is only around $6 a day per person, which means that they often fall short of what people actually need. “When you think about the rising cost of food, that is such a small amount of food,” said Rachel Sabella, the director of No Kid Hungry New York, a non-profit that works to end childhood hunger. “People are making tough choices in the grocery store.”Six dollars doesn’t get you much these days at food retailers. This year, the average price of eggs hit a record high of $4.95, and is expected to keep climbing as the US deals with the ongoing bird flu outbreak. A gallon of milk costs more than $4 and a pound of ground chuck costs $5.50, according to the consumer price index.To get by, families often hide food to save so it lasts later into the month. Caretakers report eating less or cutting their portion sizes and mothers say they sometimes forgo food at the end of the month so their kids can eat. People also reduce protein and produce in favor of cheap filler foods like rice. For people already making concessions, these proposed cuts would be devastating.“I live in poverty, not ignorance, so I keep a monthly budget and watch my spending very closely, which requires precision,” said Brytnee Bellinger, who is visually impaired and receives around $80 per month in food assistance. Bellinger usually spends her Snap dollars on grass-fed bison, which she says helps combat her iron deficiency, and fresh produce from farmers markets. If her benefit amount was reduced, she would likely be unable to afford either.“How are people supposed to balance making healthy food choices with spending wisely if their Snap benefit amount doesn’t accurately reflect the current cost of a healthy diet?” she said. “Poor people buying food isn’t the cause of federal overspending.”After being founded in 1964 as part of Lyndon Johnson’s war on poverty, Snap has been targeted by both Republicans and Democrats. Cutbacks to the program were first made in the early 1980s under Ronald Reagan. Bill Clinton signed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, which set time limits, reduced maximum allotments and eliminated eligibility of most legal immigrants for food stamps. During his first term, Donald Trump unsuccessfully attempted to cut Snap by 25 to 30%.While the Biden administration has been lauded for updating the Thrifty Food Plan to boost the amount of money people have to buy food, Republicans have made reversing the increase a major priority.GOP lawmakers and conservative thinktanks have falsely criticized the program as having high administrative costs and being rife with fraud and abuse. (In 2023, around 6% of Snap spending went to state administrative costs and few Snap errors are due to fraud on the part of recipients.) They’ve also attacked recipients for using Snap on things such as sweetened drinks. Trump officials have said that they want to ban sugary beverages, candy and more, although similar efforts have failed in the past.And the USDA secretary, Brooke Rollins, signaled on Tuesday that she plans to target Snap under the guise of keeping undocumented immigrants from receiving benefits even though they are already generally prohibited from receiving food assistance.When Snap benefits are cut, researchers have found that children were more likely to be food insecure, in poor health and at risk for development delays. Since Snap is part of a larger ecosystem, advocates say cutting the program will increase healthcare costs, poverty and hardship.Retail giants such as Walmart, Albertsons, Costco, Sam’s Club and Kroger would also be severely affected since Snap dollars are most often spent there. More than 25% of all Snap dollars are spent at Walmart and nearly 95% of the program’s recipients say they shop at the retailer.Food banks and pantries would also be massively affected by cutbacks. “If Snap is cut at the levels they’re talking about, food banks are not going to be able to fill that gap – we’re meant to be an emergency system,” said Jason Riggs, the director of policy and advocacy at Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico. “A cut to Snap at this time, when food costs are continuing to rise, the timing is horrifying. We can’t food bank our way out of this.” New Mexico has the eighth highest hunger rates in the nation and Riggs said many of their clients already use Snap.In Los Angeles, 25% of households face food insecurity, far higher than the national average of 14%, and rates are expected to increase due to the effects of the recent wildfires. “If cuts to Snap are enacted, we would need to further draw on philanthropic and community support to try to meet the increased demand for our services,” said Chris Carter, senior policy and research manager at Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, which has distributed $14.2m pounds of food and personal care products through their network, which is a 37% increase compared with last year.Advocates of Snap say there are still countless people who qualify for assistance but do not apply for it due to administrative burdens, social stigma and deeply ingrained myths about welfare and poverty in the US. Food insecure veterans are consistently less likely than nonveterans to be enrolled in Snap and data from the National Council on Aging shows that while nearly 9 million older adults are eligible for Snap, they are not enrolled. Immigrants who are permanent residents or green card holders are only able to apply for Snap after a five-year waiting period, although there are a few exceptions for children and disabled people receiving other benefits.Since being diagnosed with lupus, pancreatitis and gallbladder stones, Michele Rodriguez has been unable to work and had to change her diet to include daily servings of fresh vegetables for juicing to help with her health conditions. If her benefit was reduced, she said she would have to prioritize feeding her two children and rely on food pantries, which would have long lines, or free giveaways for produce.“It’s just devastating because people like myself and seniors and children need help with food,” said Rodriguez, who sees the proposed cuts as being unfair and contrary to what Trump said while campaigning. “The price of food has not gone down. It’s really sad to see he’s only fighting for and helping people like him, but the people in the middle and lower class, what about us? Don’t you want to protect all of us?” More