Cost of living: Foodbank spends £500 a week to meet demand

Hinckley Area Foodbank project manager Julie Baker said demand for help has outpaced donations

A foodbank has said it is spending £500 a week to keep up with the surging demand for help.

The Hinckley Area Foodbank, in Leicestershire, said the number of people contacting it for emergency food parcels had doubled in six months.

Managers said they had been forced to top up donations of food using grant funding.

However they warned it would be unsustainable to continue to do so in the long term.

The foodbank has nine centres which hand out parcels containing three days' worth of food to those struggling with the cost-of-living crisis.

The foodbank said it was unsustainable to continue to buy in large amounts of food

Foodbank project manager Julie Baker said: "We're seeing roughly 200 people across our centres.

"Previously we would have seen between 70 and 100 people, so it is a significant number of people who are coming to us.

"At the moment, we're using money from grants that we've applied for, but that's unsustainable.

"Coming to a food bank isn't a lifestyle choice. People are embarrassed, they feel as if they're failing. They're angry that they've been put in this position.

"What we try to do is put people at ease and say everybody needs a helping hand sometimes."

The Trussell Trust charity supports the Hinckley Area Foodbank.

New data released by the charity showed 76,000 emergency food parcels were donated to people across the East Midlands between April and September this year.

That is a third more than were given out during the same period in 2021.

The charity said the cost-of-living crisis has created a "tsunami of need" and has urged the government to take action.

Chief executive Emma Revie said: "These new statistics show that, even in summer months, people are struggling to afford the essentials and we are expecting that this winter will be the hardest yet for food banks and the people they support.

"This is not right. We are calling for the Prime Minister to act decisively in next week's budget."

A government spokesperson said: "We are directly supporting households in need following the aftershocks from the pandemic and Putin's illegal war in Ukraine.

"Our extensive immediate support for families also includes our Energy Price Guarantee, saving around £700 for a typical household over winter, and our Household Support Fund, worth over £1 billion to help people with essential costs."