This cancer hospital teamed up with a grocery store to offer a food pantry for patients

It’s no secret that cancer treatment is a financial burden in the US. Within six months of diagnosis, a 2025 Dana-Farber study found that 1 in 3 children being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia have food, housing, utility, or transportation insecurity. Food insecurity has also been linked to higher mortality rates among cancer patients worldwide.

That’s why Boston’s Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Massachusetts-based grocery store chain Stop & Shop created a food pantry in the hospital. Opened on March 25 with a $1 million donation from the store (and an extra $500,000 already committed), the pantry will begin its work with pediatric patients and their families, eventually expanding to adult patients as well.

“Our resource specialists are constantly assisting patients in finding resources to help with food, with transportation, lodging—because everything becomes that much less affordable with a cancer diagnosis, and some people come to a diagnosis already struggling to make ends meet,” Deborah Toffler, senior director of patient care services at Dana-Farber, told Healthcare Brew.

Social determinants of health, like access to healthy foods, transportation, and housing, are often linked to care outcomes for all patients, not just those with cancer. About 48 million people in the US experience some degree of food insecurity, according to the federal Household Food Security report from 2025.

Stop & Shop already operates food pantries that serve some 280 schools, but this is the chain’s first to be connected to a hospital, Jennifer Barr, director of external communications and community relations at Stop & Shop, said. The grocery store has worked with Dana-Farber for over 30 years to raise money for the hospital, according to a release.

“We have basically pivoted our long-term partnership to really focus on how can we address this unmet need among Dana-Farber’s pediatric families,” Barr said.

In creating the food pantry, Toffler said that Dana-Farber staff attended “food as medicine” workshops and visited local pantries to understand the science and impact of such initiatives.

“We all need food to be able to survive and to even thrive,” she said. “If you are having to choose between whether you’re going to pay for a meal or your transportation to your appointment, we want to be able to ensure that folks can have both.”

Barr added that the pantry prioritizes healthy and fresh foods over canned or processed foods. It also offers personal items like menstrual health products, deodorant, diapers, and formula.

“The ultimate goal of this pantry is really to improve health outcomes,” she said.

Other hospitals, like Rush in Chicago and Advocate Condell Medical Center in Libertyville, Illinois, operate similar pantries. Kaiser Permanente also has a Food Is Medicine Center for Excellence which provides healthy foods via services like food prescriptions.

Jay Bhatt, a practicing physician and managing director at Deloitte Center for Health Solutions who also worked on the consultancy’s food as medicine report, said in a statement that “nutritious food can be a powerful tool for prevention and better long-term health.”

“When people have access to healthy options and clear, trusted information, the evidence shows we have an opportunity to support healthier communities upstream and help reduce the burden of chronic disease over time,” he said.