ARLINGTON, Va. — Retail groups say consumers need to stop hoarding coins and start spending them, so retailers will have enough on hand to give people change for their cash purchases.

FMI, the Food Industry Association, on Monday joined several other associations representing retailers and financial institutions in sending a letter to U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, urging the agency to raise awareness about the need for increased coin circulation.

“The pandemic affected consumer usage of coins by shifting a large number of transactions from cash-based, in-person payments to card-based payments and online sales,” the letter states. “Additionally, when cash is used to make purchases, the coins received in change are often not used to make subsequent transactions. The result is more coins resting in piggy banks and coin jars and fewer being recirculated and available for retailers to facilitate more transactions. This is a problem given that the majority of coin demand is met by recirculated coins. The U.S. Mint has been clear that it does not have the capacity to produce enough new coin to make up for the circulation slowdown.”

The letter asks Treasury Secretary Yellen to help with the public awareness efforts to “get coin moving,” and to support the coin circulation campaign created by the U.S. Coin Task Force, of which FMI is a member.

“For the food industry, this coin supply disruption affects a grocer’s ability to complete cash transactions because they lack sufficient coin to make change at check out,” said Christine Pollack, vice president of government relations at FMI and a U.S. Coin Task Force member. “This significantly limits the ability of millions of cash-reliant and cash-preferring grocery customers to buy necessary goods and services.”

Grocery retailers and cash-reliant grocery customers are still struggling to access enough coin to support everyday cash transactions, according to FMI, which notes that much of the $48.5 billion in coins that are currently in circulation is being held dormant in America’s 128 million households.

FMI has been trying to raise awareness about how important coins are to cash-based businesses and to the customers who rely on cash to pay for food and household items. FMI joined the U.S. Coin Task Force in July 2020 alongside the U.S. Mint, the Federal Reserve, armored carriers, bankers, coin aggregators and other retailers to identify and promote strategies to resolve the coin supply chain issues.