Food Bank of Iowa and Feeding America Release Map the Meal Gap

The Food Bank of Iowa and Feeding America, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief organization, have released a landmark study, Map the Meal Gap that provides the first detailed look at the food budget needed by families struggling with hunger here in Iowa each year – an estimated $151 million.

The study takes a look at meals in a whole new way, using county-level data on food costs from The Nielsen Company to break down the food budget shortfall of our residents into an approximation of the meals missing from the tables of people at risk of hunger in Iowa each year.

Map the Meal Gap reveals that there are Iowans struggling with hunger in every county in the state, ranging on the low end from an estimated 9.6 percent of the population in Plymouth County up to 16.4 percent of the population in Lee County.

Map the Meal Gap Press Release

MMG County Data Set

Interactive Map

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