Food banks brace for ‘killer’ January as poverty crisis escalates

Recent figures show the country’s biggest food aid network, the Trussell Trust, gave out more than 110,000 parcels between the start of April and the end of September, with more than 37,000 of these going to children. That’s an understatement on the true level of aid distributed over the period as it doesn’t include non-affiliated food banks, including new volunteer groups set up in response to the pandemic. And it doesn’t reflect the growth in the past three months either.

It should come as no surprise that December sees bumper levels of demand each year. But what’s less commonly known is that January can see even more people seek lifeline support. With all of mainland Scotland now back into Level Four lockdown, community agencies are readying themselves for a difficult month.

“January is going to be a killer,” says Evan Adamson of Aberdeen charity Instant Neighbour. “It’s a long month anyway so its hard for people, but with the addition of everything that’s been going on we are expecting to be absolutely hammered.”

The number of people seeking help this year has “skyrocketed”, Adamson says. While many similar agencies went delivery-only during the initial lockdown, Instant Neighbour stayed open with a skeleton staff because a lot of its clients “don’t have a phone to call on”.

Last year the team helped 1400 people, this year it’s up to 2500. In half of new cases, there is at least one child.

The “massive, massive rise” is made of people on low incomes, furloughed or redundant. Many come from the oil and gas sector that made the Granite City rich. Others are international students from its universities. “They’ve been let go from their work because of the pandemic but they’ve got no recourse to public funds,” Adamson says. “They’re not able to go home because of restrictions. There are a lot of African masters students in private accommodation and they are solely surviving on food banks.”

Evan Adamson left, of Aberdeen charity Instant Neighbour

READ MORE: SNP MSP calls on Tories to prevent food bank crisis worsening

The team gave out hundreds of donated turkey dinners and butcher meat packs to local households in the run-up to Christmas, but Adamson, who has himself experienced homelessness, says it also ensured a solid supply of biscuits and confectionary went out – food that “gives you a hug”. “When I was on the other side of the counter, if I could fill my belly I could think straight,” he says.

Three and a half hours away, Craig Crosthwaite and the North Ayrshire Food Bank is preparing to sort through a “mountain” of donations. It’s priority work for January as the festive period ends. It distributed around 1200 Christmas hampers this month, four times as many as in 2019.

“It’s been a tsunami of applications from agencies,” he says. “We could have gone much higher if we’d had the resources but we had to cut off at a point. It’s bad out there, there’s no doubt about it. We’re busting a gut to give what we can.”

The effort comes despite a dip in volunteer numbers. Where up to 120 people ordinarily take part in hamper-packing, six participated this year through a combination of distancing requirements and the impact of shielding, self-isolation and “just general fear of coming out”. “We’ve lost the skills and talents of a significant proportion of our volunteer team this year,” says Crosthwaite, who’s taken just three days of annual leave since last December. “We normally move a tonne of food a week. That first fortnight of lockdown it was 26 tonnes.”

The Trussell Trust says only a change in state support systems will help reduce reliance on emergency food aid – something which still has significant stigma attached to it. Emma Revie, its chief executive, told the Sunday National: “Our volunteers are now bracing themselves for an extremely busy period – but it’s not right that any of us are forced to a charity for food, at any time of year.

“We’re calling on everyone to help end the need for food banks by joining our campaign to create a Hunger Free Future.”