Over 750,000 people visited food banks in UK over last 12 months: Report

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) – Facing soaring inflation, a record 760,000 people in the UK visited food banks over the past 12 months, according to new figures from a British food bank charity.

The report by the Trussell Trust revealed how the rising cost of living has affected British households over the past year, as food banks in the charity's network saw the "highest ever levels of need."

"Close to 3 million emergency food parcels were distributed by food banks in the Trussell Trust network in the past 12 months — the most parcels ever distributed by the network in a year," noted the report, which was published late Tuesday.

The number jumped 37% from the same period last year, it noted, adding that more than one million of those parcels were distributed to children.​​​​​​​

The study showed that the level of need was even more than during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, as more people found their incomes did not cover the cost of essentials like heating and food.

Between April 2022 and March 2023, the number of people that used a food bank for the first time was 760,000, it added.

Saying that December 2022 was food banks' busiest month on record, it said a food parcel was distributed every 8 seconds.

Emma Revie, chief executive of the Trussell Trust, called the new statistics "extremely concerning."

"For too long people have been going without because social security payments are not based on a real reflection of life’s costs and people are being pushed deeper into hardship as a result," she added.

- Over a half-million also visit 'warm rooms'

Separately, more than half a million British people visited community "warm rooms" over the winter to escape freezing homes and escalating poverty, The Guardian reported on Tuesday.

A survey by the Warm Welcome campaign, a UK-wide network of over 4,200 warm spaces, suggests that many successfully provided their visitors with a measure of respite from their problems.

Warm space projects sprang up in the thousands across Britain in the fall, as many groups including charities, libraries, and faith groups responded to “energy poverty” by opening venues to provide needy people with warmth, free food, and a cup of tea.

Meanwhile, low-income households in the UK started to receive the latest cost-of-living payment from the government to tackle ongoing high bills.

Those eligible will be paid between April 25 and May 17, according to the government.

The cost of living rose sharply across the UK during 2021 and 2022, as the annual rate of inflation reached 11.1% in October 2022, a 41-year high, before easing in subsequent months. It was 10.1% in March 2023.

Also, consumer prices, as measured by the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), were 10.1% higher in March 2023 than a year earlier.