Think Radio: Food for thought

(Editor’s note: The following is an excerpt from an episode of the Gunnison Country Times podcast, Think Radio. It has been edited for length and clarity.)

Jodi Payne is executive director of the Gunnison Country Food Pantry. In this episode of Think Radio, she discussed her journey from volunteering at a shelter in Marquette, Michigan, to the world of professional non-profit management. 

What's your impression of how we do food security as a society?

One thing that comes to mind is that 40% of all of the food produced in America is wasted, and a lot of the time that's not due to the food being bad or edible. It's the way that our retailers push food on and off the shelves so that you get the most fresh — air quotes around fresh — products, when really products have a much longer shelf life than consumers are made aware of. And so I think we have a bit of a waste issue.

You mentioned the pantry spends about $150,000 a year on supplemental food. Where does that money go?

For many years, we were working with the retail market, shopping primarily at Kroger in the past. As food prices have increased — let's just look at eggs, for example — we've started looking into some purchasing contracts with local producers. Because if a local carton of eggs always cost $6 maybe that seems high, but when the prices of eggs at the grocery store creep up to $12 and then maybe they go back down to $5, over time, we'll be saving money. And also we're trying to procure more grants that instill that sort of value into our organization. $150,000 is a lot of money to pump into our local economy. That's a lot of money to use locally and to support local farmers.

Who is the typical pantry client?

I love this question. A stereotype would be, maybe someone who's in and out of work or does not hold a job, maybe is on unemployment. I think a lot of folks think of under underserved minority populations. Even when I first started working with unhoused folks that was my first initial bias — these are folks with mental health struggles, or people who are actively in and out of addictive habits. I learned pretty quickly that that is not an accurate depiction. In Gunnison in 2024, 56% of those who used the food pantry recorded having one job, two jobs, working seasonally or that they were a student; 10% who opted to just not answer; then 2-3% of folks said they are on fixed incomes. So a majority of the guests at the food pantry say they are working people.

Listen to the rest of the conversation here.

(Alan Wartes can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or publisher@gunnisontimes.com.)