Derry families relied on over 3,000 emergency food parcels

People in Derry relied on over 3,500 emergency food parcels in the last six months, new data shows.
Derry City and Strabane received 3,397 food parcels from Trussell Trust between April and September this year. A total of 1,357 went to children and 2,040 went to adults.

In the same period the year before 3,628 food parcels were delivered with 1,595 going to children and 2,033 going to adults.

The Foyle Foodbank has been running for a decade and has partnered with The Trussell Trust for six of those years.

Strategic Development Manager for the food bank Karen Mullan said people have been seeking support in larger numbers than before Covid.

“We've seen demand go up. Obviously over the Covid period, a lot of the a lot of the figures were a wee bit screwed but now we've come out of that and we compare figures back to 2019 we would see an increase in the need for our support,” she said.

The Trussell Trust has reported that an 'alarming' 9,986 people in the North have needed to use a food bank for the first time in the past six months, warning that food banks are at ‘breaking point’.

“Our demographics are certainly changing. We have more people using us for the first time ever, or any kind of charity for this type of support. We have more people who are working.

“We find we have more people working and are off on maternity leave or on sick leave. You can prepare for being off during that period but other things can happen that can just knock people completely off and that's where we're finding people reaching out to us for support.

“We're starting to see a high number of people who are pension age because of the high cost of energy and household bills.”

People with various family statuses now rely on the food bank. Single people, single parents, two parent households and more often than ever before households with two working parents depend on the lifeline.

Foyle Foodbank communicates with those who ask for support and decide what support they need and for how long based on their situation.

“We take everybody on an individual basis. It could just be a one off or we have people who need longer term support

“They meet with the support worker here and we look at the crisis or the reason they're at the foodbank and we look at how much support we need to provide.

“We provide whole, wrap-around support and we look at the other agencies we need to do that.

“To get longer term support from us the person has to be engaging in that support and has to be seen to be making strides to get themselves out of that situation.”

The Trussell Trust’s latest figures showed that a total of 39,334 emergency food parcels were provided across the charity's foodbank network in the North between April and September.

This is the most parcels the network has ever distributed during that period and represents a 23% increase on the year before. It is also a bigger increase than in England, Wales and Scotland.

The charity says low incomes, especially from social security, debt, health conditions and issues with social security payments such as delays or sanctions were the main reasons people were left with no option but to turn to a food bank for help.  

A record 16,600 of the emergency food parcels were provided to support 8,400 children in the North. This is a 24% increase on the same period the year before.

The data showed 73% of all the parcels in the six months were for families with children.  

Families with children are likely to have been affected by the ending of the School Holiday Food Grant scheme from April 2023, according to the charity.

The scheme provided a payment during school holiday periods to help families provide nutritious meals to children and young people who are entitled to free school meals.

The Trussell Trust believes that the situation is unlikely to change in the coming months with this stark new data leading them to forecast that food banks in their network will distribute more than a million emergency food parcels across the UK between December 2023 and February 2024 the equivalent of providing a parcel every eight seconds this winter.  

Foyle Foodbank provides fresh vegetables, butter, bread, milk and meat. It also provides frozen food as well as household cleaning items, pet food, toiletries, nappies, cereal, tea, coffee.

People can donate to Foyle Foodbank directly or in Sainsbury's on Strand Road and Quayside.