Demand at Food Banks Soaring as Families Feel Financial Squeeze

Demand for food bank support increased very sharply in recent months as families across the UK continued to see their incomes squeezed to breaking point.

According to the Trussell Trust, a major food bank charity, they handed out 13 food parcels every second to struggling recipients across the country during May this year.

The charity explained to the Daily Mirror recently that demand for emergency food parcels is roughly 50 per cent higher now than was the case prior to the Covid pandemic and almost 30 per cent higher than in 2021.

Extreme demand for food bank support during April and May this year saw the charity handing out some 420,000 emergency food parcels during that two-month period alone.

For an increasingly sizable proportion of the UK population, making ends meet is becoming close to impossible, with more and more people evidently finding themselves with insufficient food to eat on a regular basis.

Rising prices across the economy and worsening personal debt situations are among the dynamics at play as individuals and households across Scotland and the UK battle to keep their heads above water from a financial perspective.

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, has described the latest figures showing just how much demand for food bank support has been increasing as being “extremely concerning”.

“This issue must be a priority for the new chancellor. No one should be forced to use a food bank to survive,” she said.

“We welcomed the government’s recent announcement of a £15 billion package to support people through this cost of living crisis,” she added in reference to direct payments being made to benefit claimants across the country.  

“It was the right thing to do using the social security system to support people on the very lowest incomes who are desperately struggling to make ends meet. To end the need for food banks, this support cannot be a one-off.”

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