In rural Northeast Florida, the challenge isn’t only the rising cost of groceries for struggling families but also getting food to people quickly enough as demand grows.
To ease that problem, Publix is donating $1.1 million to Feeding Northeast Florida, according to Jacksonville Today.
Here’s what to know
On Sept. 23, Publix announced that it will give $1.1 million to Feeding Northeast Florida as part of a $25 million anti-hunger commitment across eight Southern states.
Feeding Northeast Florida says the funding will help move food faster into rural communities within its 12-county service area, which stretches from the Gulf Coast to the First Coast.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics said August food-at-home prices were 2.2% above where they were a year earlier, as Jax Today reported.
Susan King, CEO of Feeding Northeast Florida, warned that demand has risen as well, with food lines up 20% from the first quarter of the year to the second.
“They do great work here. And they have a history of doing great work,” Publix CEO Kevin Murphy said, per Jax Today.
More background
About 7 million of the 38.1 million pounds of food Feeding Northeast Florida distributed in 2025 came from Publix’s Good Together program.
Through that effort, employees at Publix’s 1,442 stores each evening set aside edible items if the packaging fell short of appearance standards.
The food goes to local food banks rather than being discarded.
Publix said the program, now 17 years old, hit a one-year high in 2025 with 140 million pounds donated, according to Jax Today.
Such efforts give shoppers a way to identify companies putting surplus food to practical use; supporting eco-friendly initiatives by mainstream brands is a great way to direct the dollars you spend on everyday purchases toward important causes.
What’s being done?
Publix paired the donation with volunteer work in the field.
At a Hunger Action Month event at Feeding Northeast Florida’s Jacksonville headquarters, Publix employees sorted 13,900 pounds of food — enough to provide 11,583 meals, Jax Today reported.
The Florida Blue Foundation pledged $400,000 over four years to Clay County-based Waste Not Want Not as part of a $3.1 million effort to bolster food emergency networks and aid under-resourced people.
“People are feeling the squeeze, whether it’s fuel prices or whether it’s the cost of energy or other things,” Murphy told Jax Today. “… Those longer events create a bigger demand. Publix is happy to continue to do our part to support the Feeding America partners throughout our network.”
Feeding Northeast Florida board Chairman Dipak Rajhansa said: “It’s not just going to bed hungry. But it’s crime, it’s poverty, it’s nutrition, it’s education. We can solve a lot of problems if we are able to solve the problem of hunger in our community.”
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