Need for food parcels rises 46%
Cost of Living Campaign – Price Watch
IT IS set to be one of the most difficult winters ever and people continue to struggle to pay their food and heating bills in the face of the cost of living crisis.
To help with the looming crisis, Tesco has announced a new £1m support package for food banks and food charities after The Trussell Trust warned they are facing their most difficult winter ever.
With food banks and other frontline charities hit by a double whammy of unprecedented demand and soaring operating costs, Tesco has stepped in with a £1 million donation split between the Trussell Trust and FareShare to help them meet the exceptional challenges they are facing.
Tesco is the biggest supplier of food distributed by FareShare, having donated 20 million meals of surplus food to the charity in the past year alone, while Tesco and its customers are the biggest single source of food donations for the Trussell Trust’s food banks.
Tesco UK and ROI CEO Jason Tarry said: “We work closely
Our
highlights the impact of rising bills on our readers
with both the Trussell Trust and FareShare and on a recent visit to a food bank in Lambeth, I saw first-hand the challenges of supporting more people against a background of rising costs.”
Trussell Trust Chief Executive Emma Revie said: “This tsunami of need has led to the Trussell Trust launching our first ever emergency appeal and we are extremely grateful to Tesco for pledging help for our food banks at the time when they need it most.”
FareShare chief executive Lindsay Boswell CBE added: “The vast increase in the cost of living is having a disproportionate impact on people already struggling to make ends meet. As a result, the 9,500 charities and community groups FareShare support in the UK say demand for our food is higher than ever.”
The Trussell Trust has already used up its supplies that normally help 1,300 food bank centres throughout the winter months.
The trust has warned that food banks are buying three times as much food as they did in 2021 due to the growing crisis and it has distributed 46 per cent more emergency food parcels in August and September than at the same time last year.
With the need for food from food banks currently far outstripping food donations, almost a sixth of Trussell Trust
food banks’ food supplies are usually now bought in.
The additional £1m from Tesco now brings the supermarket giant’s support for charities and community projects to more than ten million pounds this year.