Minnesota food shelf visits up 7% in 2020 — a new record high.
Minnesotans made 3,831,293 visits to food shelves in 2020, a record high for an unprecedented year and 434,587 more visits than the record high set in 2019.
This marks the tenth consecutive year with more than 3 million visits to our food shelves.
If Minnesota food shelves were open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, more than seven people would visit a food shelf every minute.
Food shelves in Minnesota had to adapt quickly to the challenges of the year. Switching from service within the food shelf building to drive -up and delivery models of service in a matter of days. These service model innovations and adaptions. along with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic brought a record number of food shelf visits to Minnesota, while increasing the poundage of food distributed by 7% statewide.
In 2020, Minnesotan seniors made 512,539 visits to food shelves, up 31% from 2019. Adult usage overall, increased by 1.2% from 2019 to 1,950,503 visits. Children represented 35.7% of food shelf visits in Minnesota with a total of 1,368,251 visits, up 6.7% from 2019.