A food bank in Newark is telling us how challenges over sustainability and demand is increasing for them
It comes as the Trussel Trust network predicted they'd face the worst winter yet - with pressures expected to last until February
Demand and sustainability are the two biggest pressures facing food banks across Lincolnshire and Newark this winter,
It comes as the Trussel Trust network said they are facing the worst winter yet - with the strain expected to last until February.
Steven Charnock is the chair of trustees at Newark Food Bank and tells us how it's been so far this December:
"A lot of foodbanks are suffering in terms of actually the amount of food that they actually need. We get in around 4 or 4.5 tonnes of food donated to us each month, and I still go and spend probably around about ÂŁ1500 to ÂŁ2000 a month buying additional food.
"This time of year it's all just building up again, so around winter time. At the moment we're probably doing around 400 to 500 clients coming through the foodbank on a monthly basis and from the social supermarket we're seeing about 250 clients per month."
He added that the social supermarket has been a great help for people:
"From a short term need point of view, foodbanks obviously continue to serve that particular role. But as things are getting more and more difficult for people and they need support over a longer period of time, being able to offer a social supermarket, is much more geared to what their situations are.
"As people come to the foodbank and we see that they have a longer-term need, the we usually ask them if they'd consider using the social supermarket, which means that they're still paying, they're at least paying for the goods that they actually have. Which actually has a different affect on them and obviously makes it a much more sustainable enterprise."
The Trussell Trust forecasts that more than 600,000 people will need the support of its food banks over a three-month period.
Food banks across the Trussell Trust network are expecting to provide more than one million emergency food parcels between December 2023 and February 2024 – the most parcels ever provided across this period. This equates to an average of one food parcel every eight seconds (11,500 a day) and 7,000 people seeking support each day.
Between December and February last year, these food banks supported more than 220,000 children with emergency food, and 225,000 people who needed to use a food bank for the first time but it is anticipated these numbers will be even higher this year.
Emma Revie, Chief Executive of the Trussell Trust, said:
“We don’t want to spend every winter saying things at food banks are getting worse, but they are. Food banks are not the answer in the long term, but while we continue to fight for the change that could mean they can be closed for good your local food bank urgently needs your support.
“They need donations of food for emergency parcels, and money to fund costs such as the purchasing of food to meet the shortfall in donations they are currently experiencing.
“One in seven people in the UK face hunger because they don’t have enough money to live on. That’s not the kind of society we want to live in, and we won’t stand by and let this continue. Every year we are seeing more and more people needing food banks, and that is just not right.
“Together, we have roots into hundreds of communities, and while someone facing hunger can’t change the structural issues driving the need for food banks on their own, thousands of us coming together can. We must end hunger across the UK so that no one needs a food bank to survive.”
Food banks are calling on people in their local communities to donate, if they can, to ensure that they can continue to support everyone who needs their help.