Food bank leaders told U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján that SNAP changes and rising grocery costs are driving sharp increases in demand across the state

Patrick Lohmann, Source New Mexico

This article was originally published by Source New Mexico.

Officials from New Mexico food banks say recent changes to the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, as well as rising grocery costs, have dramatically increased demand at community food distribution centers across the state. 

A leader of Roadrunner Food Bank, the largest food bank in New Mexico, told U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) during a roundtable Tuesday that demand increased 79% at the food bank between January 2025 and January 2026, which is the most-recent data available.

Luján convened a group of state and nonprofit leaders in Albuquerque’s South Valley to discuss food-access impacts of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” President Donald Trump signed into law last July. The law imposed new work requirements on SNAP recipients and also threatened huge financial penalties for states, including New Mexico, that have high rates of errors administering the federal food assistance program. 

Luján’s visit comes on the heels of a recent Center on Budget Policies and Priorities report that found more than 10,000 New Mexico children have lost SNAP benefits since the law went into effect. Also, Luján, a member of the Senate’s Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee, tried unsuccessfully to convince majority Republicans to delay the imposition of error rate penalties on states during a Farm Bill markup session last week. 

Katy Anderson, Roadrunner Food Bank’s vice president of strategy, partnerships and advocacy, told Luján that she believes the increased demand at the food bank comes both from those who recently lost SNAP due to the federal spending bill and also from those who aren’t eligible for SNAP but still need free food due to rising grocery costs. 

“It’s a challenging landscape for a lot of folks in New Mexico right now,” she said. 

Ari Herring, executive director of the Rio Grande Food Project, a smaller food bank serving the Albuquerque area, said  her organization also saw  a significant demand increase between January 2025 and 2026. Recipients made roughly 5,600 visits to the food bank in January 2026, she said, marking a 23% increase from the previous January. 

A Wednesday inflation report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that food prices nationally increased 3% in July over a year ago, continuing a trend of rising grocery prices since July 2024. Inflation across all consumer spending categories increased 2.7% in the Mountain region, which includes New Mexico, the new data shows.

Anderson said Roadrunner Food Bank has largely been able to fill demand, thanks in part to state funding the Legislature approved during a special session last October convened to stave off the most-damaging effects from the federal spending bill to SNAP and Medicaid, as well as other benefit programs. 

The Legislature approved $8 million specifically for food banks. The funding was intended to help the banks, which lost federal funding early in Trump’s second term from programs such as The Emergency Food Assistance Program, meet an anticipated demand increase due to SNAP cuts. 

Few other states used their own funds to help food banks prepare for the increase in demand, Luján noted.

“Everything that was eliminated in the ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ the state during the special [session] said, ‘Well, we can do this for a year or two,” Luján said. “It’s a patch. I don’t know what happens after that.” 

Patrick Lohmann is a reporter for Source New Mexico.