Church-led food banks feeding 50% more than last year

Some 61,000 people nationwide have received emergency food handouts from Trussell Trust church-led foodbanks in the last 12 months, 50% more than last year.

Foodbank recipients are not the homeless; they are low-income working families who hit crisis, people who have been made redundant or people experiencing benefits delays.

And foodbanks are opening at an unprecedented rate to meet the high demand for emergency food aid: in 2011 The Trussell Trust has launched a new foodbank every week, launching its 100th UK foodbank last week.

Executive Chairman of The Trussell Trust, Chris Mould, says: "Since 2008 we’ve seen numbers fed by foodbanks increase by 136%. Recession followed by high unemployment and rising food and fuel prices has had a huge impact. 

"Foodbank clients are faced with impossible choices between paying the rent and buying food. Parents skip meals or consider crime to feed their children. The shocking truth is that thousands are going hungry in their own homes in 21st century Britain."
 
He adds: "The good news is that more local churches are becoming aware of the hunger on their doorsteps and with our help they are starting foodbanks to stop people going without food."
 
A total of 21 new UK foodbanks providing a minimum of three days non-perishable food to people in crisis have been launched in 2011 alone. Coventry Foodbank opened in January and has already fed over 800 people. Project Manager Gavin Kibble says: "We hugely underestimated the number of people in need of emergency food and have been shocked at the demand since opening. In the last week alone we have fed over 150 people. The store room is almost bare. We’ve had to do an urgent appeal for food donations to meet this unprecedented need."

Some 57% of children in poverty in the UK live in working households, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Many of those helped by foodbanks are in work or struggling after losing their job or business.

For Adrian and Kay, a couple both made redundant when Polestar Foods closed down in Okehampton, "the foodbank was a lifesaver". They received emergency food for two weeks, helping them to feed their four-year-old daughter until redundancy pay came though.
 
Trussell Trust foodbanks are run by local churches in partnership with the local community. All food given out is donated by local people and every person in receipt of a food parcel is referred by a frontline care professional such as a doctor or social worker. The Trussell Trust estimates that numbers fed by foodbanks could swell to 500,000 by 2015.