foodbanks

This article follows up on a report  just published by Barnardo’s titled ‘families in need of food parcels’. The charity carried out research in November to explore the growing issue of food poverty amongst families and young people; finding that Christmas dinner for many children may be a food parcel from a local foodbank. Statistics from the Trussell Trust are worrying: almost 350,000 people have received at least three days emergency food from foodbanks during the last 12 months, nearly 100,000 more than anticipated and close to triple the number helped in 2011-2012. On a heartfelt note, Jordan Cox, a teenage from Essex, has collected hundreds of supermarket coupons to buy £600 worth of shopping for 4p so he could give the food to families – you can read his story here.  For readers who will be cooking Christmas lunch, this ‘thank you’ video from farmers (produced by the NFU) may help you think about how/where you purchase your ingredients from.