Rising food and fuel prices are making it more difficult for Ohio food banks to purchase enough food, just as pantries and soup kitchens across the state are seeing an uptick in visitors because of the slowing economy.

A story from the AP says, officials at the Mid-Ohio Food Bank placed an online order with the U.S. Department of Agriculture commodities program late last month for almost $400,000.

The next day, officials were told they owed an extra $36,000 because of a sudden price increase as the order was being filled. Contributing to the sharp rise was the cost of a truckload of peanut butter, a popular item that jumped $6,000 in just minutes.

The Columbus-based organization, which supplies food to more than 500 pantries, soup kitchens and other charities in 20 central and eastern counties, had to return a tractor-trailer load of spaghetti and another load of spaghetti sauce to make ends meet.

In the last year, the price of spaghetti has jumped 98 percent, applesauce 48 percent and whole-kernel corn 33 percent, Mid-Ohio officials said. Even though the organization buys food in bulk to save money, it stopped purchasing rice because the price has gone up 118 percent since 2007.