Why your food bank software matters now more than ever

Written by: Victoria Ziemianin

One billion dollars in USDA aid: cancelled. SNAP benefits for over 7 million people: on the line. Hundreds of thousands of pounds of commodity deliveries: abruptly frozen. It would be an understatement to say that it’s a challenging time to be in food banking.

But just as directors, service insights managers, data analysts and others work tirelessly to adapt, another significant hurdle springs up: A widely used food bank software platform announces it will no longer release future updates.

What does this mean for your organization? In this climate, technology isn’t just a back-office tool; it’s a lifeline. More and more leaders are recognizing just how essential their food bank software is to helping them stay flexible, meet compliance requirements, and prove their impact.

We hope this post will give you a better understanding of what recent shifts mean for your organization, and how you can move forward with confidence.

New top-of-mind priorities for food bank leaders

Prior to late 2024, the focus was on food distribution. Now, food bank leaders are shifting their focus to benefits access, particularly SNAP 2025 changes to enrollment and referrals. Organizations are under growing pressure to demonstrate outcomes through data and analytics, streamline operations to reduce administrative burden, and build partnerships with healthcare and workforce systems to prove eligibility.

Food bank software — why it’s needed

At the same time, it’s now critical to navigate stricter data privacy and consent requirements, and to prepare for fluctuating demand brought about by these policy changes. Preparedness depends heavily on having the right technology partners by your side who align with evolving compliance standards and advocacy efforts.

Nutrition programs served by food bank software:

Which programs are impacted by policy and technology shifts? If you are funded by any of these programs, you’re likely feeling the effects:

• The Emergency Food Assistance Program and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (TEFAP & CSFP)

• Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)

• The Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP) and the Summer Food Service Program (SFSP or SUN Meals)

What workdays look like without modern food bank software

Too many manual lifts

• For paper-based operations, about 30% to 40% of volunteer and staff time is spent managing documentation manually.

• Depending on the program, intake can take 15-30 minutes when handled manually via paper.

• Up to 1,000 hours are wasted internally on inefficient operations and admin processes.

• Solution: Organizations save up to 30% on operational costs by using technology to update processes.

Out-of-sync and siloed work

Work that’s done in isolation, with delayed updates, can result in serious data security risks and record inaccuracies. It can create duplicate and even conflicting records. This can impact peoples’ program eligibility, which is under tighter scrutiny than ever before.

It can also cause confusion and delays while your team tries to get to the bottom of discrepancies, leading to an inconsistent community experience.

Reducing complexity in food banking & pantry management

Modern food bank and pantry management software empowers your organization to digitally track services and customize workflows. This evidence helps you build your case for future funding and program expansion.

It also gives visibility into future needs so you can plan more proactively. By reducing complexity internally and externally, it helps maintain a sense of clarity for your teams and the community in times of uncertainty.

How else can it help your team? Streamlined processes like intake, real-time service tracking, and inventory management minimize duplicate work like redundant client records, and create a more efficient, dignified experience. Staying aligned with emerging technologies ensures your organization stays adaptable, forward-thinking, and equipped to meet evolving community needs.

But not all food banking platforms are equal or a match for your needs.

Different platforms, different pros and cons.

Free pantry management and food bank software

Free pantry management and food bank software might solve near-term budgetary problems, but it can easily create a much larger problem:

A 2025 TechTarget survey shows that 32% of cyberattacks exploit unpatched or outdated software, a common issue in unmanaged free tools.

Why? Without financial backing, free platforms don’t have the resources to upgrade or make necessary changes to protect users in the future. At that point, they will be disruptive to your services rather than helpful.

Here are some concrete examples of ways free software can disrupt your operations and compromise community trust:

Enterprise food bank software

Enterprise platforms might have a lot of attractive features and scalability, but they are not a fit for all organizations. They might be overly complex and simply offer more features and tools than your team has the time or need to use, making them more burdensome than beneficial.

The Goldilocks option

The right food bank and pantry management software for your organization should strike the perfect balance; it won’t drain the budget, but it should still be powerful enough to solve the problems you need to solve.

With TEFAP and SNAP 2025 changes, you need to adapt fast.

TEFAP funding, SNAP 2025 changes, and other Farm Bill Nutrition program changes are highly disruptive to the work you do. These shifts demand quick pivots to meet new requirements, apply for grants, and scale services. If your systems are outdated, problems will pile up: Data becomes a chore to access, and reporting and compliance become much more time-consuming and tedious processes.

The right technology helps you stay flexible. It provides reliable, updated data, customizable workflows, and the credibility funders expect.

Link2Feed is here to support you — now and in the future

Link2Feed is a software platform dedicated to empowering human services organizations in their efforts to alleviate poverty. Through our affordable, user-friendly software, we’re proud to have impacted more than 40 million lives globally.

We equip organizations like yours with the tools, data, and processes you need to navigate policy challenges, accelerate your mission, and improve outcomes.

For TEFAP & CSFP, we help by:

• Tracking eligibility & managing certification

• Automating compliance

• Digitizing disclaimers & signatures

For Regular Food Pantry programs, we help by:

• De-duplicating client records

• Recording items/food provided

• Facilitating wrap-around services

For SNAP, we help by:

• Tracking applications & managing follow-ups

• Recording items/food provided

• Letting you view client eligibility within other programs

For CACFP & SFSP, we help by:

• Automating & digitizing all forms

• Enabling recording by participant or anonymously

• Allowing you to run more than one service at a time

These efficiencies add up to meaningful change in the communities our customers serve.