• Tiffany Bly has a tight budget and relies on food banks to feed her family.
• In 2023, 47 million Americans lived in food-insecure households, a 38% increase from 2021.
• Bly's household income is slightly above the federal poverty line, disqualifying them from most aid.

Tiffany Bly has no money left after she pays her monthly bills. To feed her family of four, she relies on her local food bank.

"It has saved us," said Bly, 57, who lives in North Texas with her 22-year-old daughter Caeleigh Hallman, Hallman's husband, and their baby. "Everything that we're surviving on we've gotten from our food pantry."

Bly and her family are some of the millions of Americans who rely on assistance programs to eat. About one in seven US households — or 47 million people — lived in a food insecure household in 2023, per the latest data available from the national nonprofit Feeding America. The national food insecurity rate that year was up 38% over 2021.

Bly's household cobbles together meals through regular food pantry hauls and limited spending at the grocery store, usually less than $150 a month. Boxes from the food pantry are often filled with the basics — like ground beef, bread, potatoes, canned vegetables, spaghetti sauce, and pasta — but sometimes, Bly gets lucky: the pantry has eggs or fresh fruit.

She said there are a lot of families like hers who are struggling to put food on the table. She told Business Insider about her finances, grocery shopping strategies, and what she picks up at the food pantry.

"We're a normal family," Bly said. "We work and we still need help, and it's OK to need the help."

Bly relies on pantries for most of the food her family is 'surviving on'

Bly earns just under $2,000 monthly at her administrative job, which is supplemented by the few thousand dollars Hallman's husband makes each month. Because childcare is expensive and difficult to access near their rural Texas town, Hallman stays with the baby.

Along with monthly trips to the food pantry, Bly and Hallman also visit a smaller pantry at a church each week to fill up on essentials.

At the grocery store, Bly said she sticks to items that are less accessible at pantries, like toilet paper or laundry detergent. Her last trip to Walmart — which included deodorant ($8.97), butter ($7.64), and bacon ($7.94) — added up to $56.28. She shops a couple times a month, but limits her spending.

She added that her household doesn't waste anything. When the food pantry has produce, they use every item to make meals, snacks, smoothies, and baked goods. Often, Bly and Hallman show off their pantry hauls, cook together, and encourage followers to "use their resources" on their shared TikTok channel, she said.

Bly also said her family gets creative to save money: they make their own hair conditioner with coconut oil and use essential oils and vinegar to make cleaning supplies.

"We don't have other financial assistance," she said. "We are doing it on our own."

While Bly's family is low income, they do not receive any forms of government aid because their household earnings are above the federal poverty line — which is $32,150 for a family of four. When she applied for SNAP benefits, Bly said her income was $11 too high to qualify. Bly's family's household income is also slightly too high for WIC, which is financial aid for women, infants, and children.

Food banks and pantries are often the only source of food assistance for low-income Americans who are ineligible for SNAP and other safety net programs, like Bly and Hallman. Feeding America reported that one in six US households received charitable food assistance in 2022, the most recently available data.

Bly said there are many different reasons that a family may need help affording groceries, either temporarily or long-term.

"It's OK to be scared about how your bills are gonna get paid," she said. "And it's OK to use the resources that are available to you so you don't have to go hungry."

Are you open to sharing how your grocery budget with us? If so, reach out to [email protected].

• Emily Schildt, 37, is a veteran brand marketer and CEO of Pop Up Grocer, a boutique grocery store.
• Pop Up Grocer, which has been called NYC's answer to Erewhon, has plans to expand across the US.
• Its success thanks to Gen Z viewing a pantry stocked with pricey snacks as a status symbol.

Emily Schildt is a millennial, but if you peeked into her pantry, you could easily mistake her for Gen Z.

Bank of America reported Gen Z customers spent more at premium grocery stores than any other generation in 2024. Younger consumers are more likely to buy luxury grocery items as they become priced out of more expensive purchases, like a house or designer handbag.

Schildt, 37, gets the hype. The self-proclaimed "peanut butter connoisseur" currently has two spreads on rotation in her Brooklyn home: One Trick Pony Nuts, a peanut butter made of Argentine peanuts and Patagonian sea salt, and Pistakio's pistachio spread. Together the two jars retail at over $25.

Schildt, the CEO of Pop Up Grocer, is accustomed to the price of luxury condiments. She launched the boutique grocery store in 2019 to spotlight the newest modern food and beverage brands.

The brand's first brick-and-store opened last year in the West Village. TikTokers dubbed Pop Up Grocer as New York City's answer to Erewhon — an upscale market chain in Los Angeles known as a celebrity hotspot and for pricing essentials like milk for $20.

Schildt was working as marketer for small food companies and saw firsthand how difficult it was for her clients to succeed at large retailers.

"You can obviously have a great product and a wonderful story to tell, but ultimately, it was really difficult, if not impossible, to find a shelf on which to sell your product," Schildt said.

That realization led her to launch Pop Up Grocer in 2019. Schildt told Business Insider, "I started as a single pop-up store here in New York and it was just 10 days long and it was really successful. So we went on to do nine more of those." Pop up Grocer raised a $3 million seed round in 2021.

Now, the company has evolved into a permanent store. Schildt said the store, which opened in 2023, has been successful "in terms of year-over-year growth."

"We have been fortunate to operate every unit since our start profitably," she said, adding "I'm very proud and excited about that."

"Now we are putting plans in place and making inroads to open a second store," she said.

Gen Z is redefining groceries as a luxury

The last four years haven't been without challenges.

First, there was the not-so-small hurdle of launching Pop Up Grocer during a worldwide pandemic. "It was wild," Schildt said, adding that she felt it has had a lasting impact on consumers.

People might be more "flush with cash" nowadays, she said, but "they're being very reserved about how they're spending it."

However, one demographic isn't afraid of splurging on pantry products: Gen Z. BI previously reported that Gen Zers are spending more on expensive snacks, food, and beverages than ever.

Schildt echoed this, telling BI the generation has redefined groceries as "a more accessible luxury product."

"A $20 Hailey Bieber smoothie from Erewhon might give you some clout among your peers and social audience," she said. Similarly, at Pop Up Grocer, some of the most expensive snacks have the highest sales in revenue.

A $20 Coconut Cult yogurt is small potatoes compared to a luxury handbag, but it still gives you a feeling of indulgence, Schildt said.

The Sephora of Food Retail

Like many CEOs, Schildt does some of her best problem-solving and ideating on the shop floor.

"I learned that I didn't really know my customers at all until, you know, I sat in our café for a week and watched how people use the store, what they're buying, and how they interact with our team."

It's a strategy that Schildt used long before she opened the first Pop Up Grocer store.

When asked about the Erewhon comparisons, Schildt said, "Erewhon is my Mecca," adding, "I went many times as a point of inspiration for starting my business. To go in there and to find camel milk as a concept was really sort of inspiring."

In the aisles of Erewhon, Schildt asked herself: "If I'm using the store in this way for discovery and inspiration, why isn't there a store that is created specifically for that purpose?"

Enter Pop Up Grocer.

"Ultimately, our goal is to be the Sephora, if you will, of food and beverage, of grocery," she said, "a place for discovering new brands and new products, for prioritizing, as a company, new brands and underrepresented and under-resourced founders across the US."

Aspirational grocery shopping is a promising market for Schildt to bet her success on. Erewhon made an estimated profit of $171 million last year and told Bloomberg it averages four times the annual revenue per square foot of other groceries. Bayley & Sage, a luxury independent grocery store in London, saw a 29% increase in revenue last year, according to the Financial Times.

Schildt wouldn't say where she plans to open the next Pop Up Grocer, though Los Angeles, a hub for the rich and famous of America, does seem like a logical next step.

If Pop up Grocer does head west, Erewhon should brace for some friendly competition, which Schildt said is necessary to grow the category.

"The more the merrier," she added.