Demand for Hackney Foodbank rises by 300 per cent in six years as cost of living crisis rages on

Hackney Foodbank CEO Pat Fitzsimons. Photograph: Hackney Foodbank

Bosses at Hackney Foodbank say demand for their services is 300 per cent higher than it was in 2019.

New figures by Trussell released today (Wednesday, 11 March) found London food banks provided the equivalent of 1,212 meals every day in 2025. That equates to a parcel almost every minute. 

In Hackney, 65 per cent of emergency food goes to families with children in an average week.

Hackney Foodbank supported more than 7,200 people and gave out the equivalent of 302,571 meals last year –  up from 75,300 six years prior.

With the ongoing effects of the pandemic and subsequent cost of living crisis continuing to hit families in the borough, head of fundraising at Hackney Foodbank Jenna Fansa said the crisis is far from over.

“The stats say a lot, but they don’t reveal just how bleak things are”, she said. 

The food bank expects to give out more than £125,000 worth of food to children alone in 2026. “While the number of people we support has reduced slightly in the past year, the people we help tend to be in deeper poverty now”, she added.

Fansa said factors such as high rent costs in the borough and wages and benefits allowances that don’t match the demands of struggling families meant some of the people using the food bank’s services are struggling to get out of poverty.

“We regularly see parents who skip meals so their children can eat and people isolated in cold homes because they can’t afford the heating or the cost of going out”, she added.

“Our food bank is still providing food for around 680 people per week, and we depend on the community for support.”

Hackney Foodbank recently launched its No Child Left Hungry campaign to provide support for close to 600 children who rely on its services each month.

Fansa told the Citizen: “There is a generation of children who have grown up in foodbanks.

“Parents that we speak to now have often grown up in poverty. We really need to break that chain and inspire children to have big dreams”.

Similarly, Trussell – a charity which runs Hackney Foodbank and other food banks across the country – is calling on the government to lift the freeze on Local Housing Allowance and to introduce a basic rate of Universal Credit to cover the cost of necessities.

This, they argue, will protect people from ever-increasing rent costs and ensure everyone has what they need to survive.

Helen Barnard, director of policy and research at Trussell, said: “Too many people across the capital are still being pushed to the brink. Even as we gain hope from people getting back on their feet, we cannot lose sight of the heartbreaking injustice that such shocking numbers of people are still trapped in the grip of severe hardship.

“The pandemic and cost of living crisis have left deep scars. Severe hardship still weighs heavily on daily lives, leaving people overlooked and left behind”.

Find out more about the No Child Left Hungry campaign here.