New data shows how much food Alabama families facing hunger are still short each year, what it costs, and what it will take to close the gap.
Most hunger statistics count people. The meal gap counts something else: food that isn’t there.
Each year, Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap study asks a simple question. After families facing hunger have used their paychecks, their benefits, and whatever help they can find, how much food are they still missing? The answer for Alabama, based on the newest data from 2024, is $624.9 million a year.
From dollars to meals
The average meal in Alabama now costs $3.58, up from $3.50 the year before. Divide the gap by that price and you get roughly 174.5 million meals that Alabama families need and don’t have.
For perspective, Feeding Alabama’s eight food banks distributed about 90 million pounds of food last year, roughly 75 million meals. That is an enormous amount of work by staff, volunteers, and 1,400+ partner agencies. And the gap left over is still more than twice as large.
What the gap looks like for one person
Spread across the 919,160 Alabamians facing hunger, the gap works out to about $680 per person, or roughly 190 missing meals each year. That’s not every meal, every day. It’s the skipped lunch at the end of the month, the smaller portions when a car repair comes due, the dinner that becomes cereal.
For children, the stakes are higher. An estimated 276,640 Alabama kids, or 1 in 4, live in homes facing hunger.
Why the price of a meal matters
The meal gap grows when food gets more expensive, even if the number of people facing hunger stays the same. And that price isn’t the same everywhere. A meal costs an average of $3.33 in Franklin and Winston counties and $4.15 in Baldwin and Tuscaloosa counties. The same grocery budget buys about 25 percent fewer meals in Alabama’s most expensive counties than in its least expensive.
The gap in your county
Every one of Alabama’s 67 counties has a meal gap. The largest are in the counties with the most people:
| County | Annual meal gap | Missing meals (approx.) |
| Jefferson | $83.3 million | 20.8 million |
| Mobile | $48.7 million | 13.1 million |
| Madison | $44.1 million | 11.5 million |
| Tuscaloosa | $30.7 million | 7.4 million |
| Baldwin | $29.9 million | 7.2 million |
| Montgomery | $27.6 million | 7.4 million |
In smaller counties, the dollar figures are lower but the need is just as real. In Greene County, which has the highest hunger rate in the state, 1,840 people share a gap of about $1.4 million a year.
Who falls into the gap
More than half of Alabamians facing hunger, 54.8 percent, earn too much to qualify for SNAP but not enough to reliably afford groceries. For them, food banks and local pantries are often the only help available.
For families who do receive SNAP, the program does most of the heavy lifting. For every meal the Feeding Alabama network provides, SNAP provides nine. That is why changes to SNAP matter so much: with more than 80,000 Alabamians coming off the program in the past year, every lost benefit makes the gap wider and sends more families to pantry lines.
Closing the gap takes all of us
No single program, organization, or donor can close a 174-million-meal gap alone. But every piece makes it smaller.
- Give: Your gift helps food banks buy, store, and deliver food where the gap is widest. [Donate Today]
- Volunteer: Sort, pack, and distribute at your regional food bank. [Find your food bank]
- Speak up: Tell Alabama’s congressional delegation that SNAP matters to your community. [Take Action]
- See your county’s gap: [Map the Meal Gap]
Source: Feeding America, Map the Meal Gap 2026 (2024 data). Missing meals are calculated by dividing the annual food budget shortfall by the average cost of a meal. County figures are estimates.
