ROCHESTER — Southeastern Minnesota’s largest food bank is stopping deliveries to some of the region’s smallest food banks, citing a need to use resources more efficiently as demand for food assistance continues to rise.

Rochester-based Channel One Regional Food Bank says visits to food banks increased nearly 40 percent year over year in the first half of 2024. The food bank now serves 33,000 households in a 14-county region stretching from Blue Earth, Minnesota, to La Crosse, Wisconsin.

“We need to increase efficiency now,” said Virginia Witherspoon, Channel One’s chief executive. “We are facing an insurmountable need and we need to make sure that every time we put a truck out, we are getting it to the areas of greatest need.”

Channel One announced it will stop offering 11 regional programs, but declined to provide a list of the food distribution sites to which deliveries will be stopped. In total, they deliver to about 300 households a month, it said. The changes will also affect 225 students who use Channel One’s backpack programs.

All Seasons Community Services in Kenyon learned last month that Channel One would cease operations at its station, located about 45 minutes northwest of Rochester. The change took effect Aug. 16.

Mary Frutiger, director of All Seasons, said the letter is a blow to the food bank, which serves 25 to 100 households each month in five towns, including Kenyon, Wanamingo and Nerstrand.

“We will work together; we will sort this out,” Frutiger said in an interview. “But we should not have been put in this situation at such short notice.”

Witherspoon said some of the programs no longer offered by Channel One would have had the opportunity to receive grants in 2022 to “increase choice and access to their food banks to serve more people in their area,” but declined to participate in the program.