'Nobody will be turned away' at Cambridgeshire food bank ahead of new school term
March Foodbank has faced pressure to help those in need this summer
A foodbank manager in Cambridgeshire believes the pressure to help those in need has stayed despite seeing less users.
On average, 26 users a week have been to March Foodbank this summer, despite more than half of adults reporting an increase in their cost of living as families prepare for the start of a new school year.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics found in July and August, 56 per cent of people in Great Britain have seen a rise in costs compared with the month before.
Becky Cooper manages March Foodbank:
“These are people that never thought they’d need to walk through the doors of a food bank; you’ve got that pressure on you to make them feel like a better person,” she said.
“They feel the lowest of the low and they’re certainly not; there should be no stigma attached to walking into our foodbank.”
A YouGov survey by food poverty charity the Food Foundation found that in June 2023, 17.0% of households in the UK were ‘food insecure’.
This means households either ate less or went a day without eating because they couldn’t access or afford food.
That figure was up from 8.8% in January 2022.
"It's a double whammy for some of our clients"
At March Foodbank, one of the main reasons it’s seen a drop in people needing its help is due to a cut in utility bills.
“We’re in the summer months where we’re not using as much heating, so it’s a double whammy for some of our clients that they’ve seen a reduction in their unit cost,” Becky said.
Food inflation, the rate at which food prices rise, has slipped from 13.4% last month to 11.5% for August, according to the British Retail Consortium.
Nobody is ever turned away despite foodbank pressure
Despite giving out between 600-700kg of food a week over the summer, March Foodbank is only receiving around a third of that weight in donations.
But even though they are facing mounting pressure and with children heading back to school soon, Becky hopes that the foodbank will continue to help out.
“I had a lady with three allergies last week trying to sort her a parcel; she got what she needed, but I topped her up with a shopping voucher,” Becky added.
“Our donations in have reduced; our donors themselves are feeling the pinch, so some weeks I am going to a supermarket and topping up our stores myself.
“But we’ve never had to turn anybody away.”