Inside the food banks seeing 'highest demand ever seen' as cost of living harms families

Chocolate biscuits piled on plates, vases of flowers and leaflets signposting people to places they can get more support are laid out on top of the polka-dot tablecloths in the church hall where North Guildford Food Bank is based three days every week. It is a welcoming atmosphere as volunteers busily prepare food parcels for the clients they know are arriving to collect today.

One man has been coming to the food bank every week for four years – and in that time, he has only ever needed two food parcels. He had needed help, after facing problems with his benefit payments, and was told he could have a hamper, but he no longer needs the food. “I just come here for a cup of tea and a chat,” he says. It is more than just a food bank. It is a community. 

Paula, a mother of six and grandmother, tells the Big Issue how vital it has been to her over the last few years. “Something happened in my life and it limited me with everything I could do with my children and feeding was one of them, and with the cost of living going up and that, I was struggling to do my council tax and my bills.

“It was leaving me literally with nothing. I was missing dinners myself and limiting what I have for myself so I could give it to my children,” she says.

Read more:

• Food banks urge Labour to rethink benefit cuts amid ‘heartbreaking’ surge in demand
• We need to change the way we talk about benefits if we’re ever going to rebuild trust in the system
• Save tens of billions in public money by ending hunger – not slashing benefits, government told

Paula’s six-year-old granddaughter is with her, dashing around the church hall looking for biscuits. 

“If you’re in need, don’t be shy or embarrassed to go to a food bank. You’re always welcome,” Paula adds. She admits she felt “nervous” and “a little bit ashamed” when she first needed help, but adds: “Everyone’s so friendly, and I wouldn’t do without them.”

Food banks like this one in North Guildford, Surrey offer a lifeline to people like Paula – but demand is soaring and people are increasingly needing help, putting pressure on volunteers.

More than 2.9 million emergency food parcels were distributed by food banks in Trussell’s network between April 2024 and March 2025, with more than a million of those going to children. This represents a 51% increase compared to five years ago and is the equivalent of one parcel being distributed every 11 seconds. 

But these figures aren’t representative of the true scale of hunger. There are at least 1,172 independent food banks across the UK – including North Guildford Food Bank – on top of the 1,400 Trussell food banks.

More than half of organisations surveyed by the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) saw increased need between September 2024 to February 2025 in comparison to the same period the previous year.

Jessica Povey, manager at North Guildford Food Bank, says: “Food prices are still going up. Water bills are going up. And people’s income isn’t going up in line with that. If you were able to manage previously and you had a little bit of income saved for a blip, all that extra income has been used up.”

Between January and April this year, they were seeing between 40 and 50 families a week, and demand is up by around 22% on the previous year. Povey explains that she does not want people to become dependent on the food bank, and they try to limit the numbers of food parcels people can get, but they also “don’t want to turn people away that need it”. 

Leominster Food Bank in Herefordshire, which is also supported by IFAN, is similarly seeing a huge rise in demand. When the food bank started more than a decade ago, they were seeing just 20 to 30 people. But by April 2020, as a result of food insecurity during the pandemic, they were seeing around 500 people every week. There was some respite in 2021, when universal credit was uplifted during the pandemic, but since that ended numbers have “grown and grown”. 

“It’s just depressingly continuing to rise. Back when this government got voted in, we were hopeful that, although it was going to be a slow burn, things were going to turn around soon and that things might start becoming easier for people. That is just not what we’ve seen in the first quarter of this year,” says Kathy Bland, manager at the food bank.

“It’s been the highest demand that we’ve ever seen. We don’t want to be in the situation where we can’t meet demand, but in order to be able to meet capacity, we’re having to lean really heavily on the household support fund. If that gets pulled, I don’t know what we’re going to do at that point.”

The household support fund is provided by the government to councils to provide financial assistance to low-income households struggling to afford their essentials. Many local authorities have designated a portion of the funding to food banks and food aid organisations. 

After uncertainty over whether it would be continued, the Labour government extended the £421million fund until the end of March 2026, while “exploring options around how best to provide sustainable support to vulnerable households in the longer term” – such as through plans for increased employment support and the child poverty strategy, which is yet to be published.

The government has stressed it is “determined to support more people back to work” and has launched a £1 billion package to “help disabled people and those who are long-term sick find secure, stable jobs”. It has also increased the national living wage, uprated benefits by 1.7%, and has introduced a fair repayment rate on universal credit deductions to help boost financial security.

However, there remain fears about what might happen if the household support fund does not continue beyond next year, particularly as Labour is plotting cuts to disability benefits. By the government’s own estimates, around 250,000 more people could face poverty, including 50,000 children, if the government’s proposed welfare reforms go ahead next year.

“We’re concerned because you know what’s going to happen is that those people are going to need to rely on us more,” says Bland. “As much as we’re saying people cannot just be dependent on the food bank, because we can’t meet everybody’s needs if they keep increasing, you know that’s the only place they’re going to go when they’ve had their benefits cut, or they have their PIP cut. They’ll have to make more cuts in their life than they were already doing. People’s mental health is really poor.”

In London, food bank use has doubled since 2019, according to Trussell’s statistics. Its food banks provided 455,571 parcels in the year up to March 2025.

At the independent Gospel Centre Food Bank in Haringey, North London, Steve Hill points out that there are “so many other” independent food aid organisations in the capital that the true figures are probably far higher.

People can self-refer to Gospel Centre Food Bank, and they have many regulars who come on behalf of their households – often large families of six or more people. Recently, they have supported around 67 households every week.

“For many people, it’s a lack of income,” Hill says. “A lot of people have ongoing health and disability issues, and so they’re further away from the labour market. They need more health-related support – not just saying to them they have to engage [with the system] in order to get work, but holistic support to improve their health.

“That would have some effect on employment and income, but bear in mind there are older people and people with limited English for whom it won’t result in more employment.”

With so many people relying on their support, many food banks are struggling to get enough donations to meet the level of need and are often having to use reserves to buy extra food. Kettering Foodbank, another IFAN food bank, is giving out around £17,000 worth of food every month, according to trustee Jane Calcott. They serve roughly 50 people a day, four days a week. 

Through winter, they saw an increase in the number of pensioners coming to the food bank because of the loss of the winter fuel payment. “People are concerned about the future,” Calcott says. “So much has changed. People are scared of maybe next winter even coming. You just pick up the general unease, because they don’t know which way to turn, most of them.

“The whole system needs a radical overhaul. That’s all you can say about it. As soon as they brought universal credit, that impacted greatly on absolutely everybody. And it just needs really looking at. I know you can’t work with everybody as we do on an individual basis, but there’s got to be a way where they can ascertain the needs of people in a more proactive way.”

Find out how to donate to North Guildford Food Bank, Leominster Food Bank, Gospel Centre Food Bank in Haringey and Kettering Food Bank, which are all members of IFAN.

Promises are easy to break. Sign Big Issue’s petition for a Poverty Zero law and help us make tackling poverty a legal requirement, not just a policy priority.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income. To support our work buy a copy of the magazine or get the app from the App Store or Google Play.