Who would have thought Bury St. Edmunds would need a food bank? People not able to buy food in our town? “Steady on, David”, I hear you say, “This isn’t Dickensian London”.

Well, the number of people in the UK who cannot afford to eat has risen during the past twelve months.

Across the country, parents say their children are going to bed hungry for want of food. Those who feel they do not have enough money to buy sufficient food also include old people with meagre pensions, the recently unemployed or people whose basic travel to work and accommodation costs deplete their take home pay before their next monthly pay check comes in. This is a shocking phenomenon in twenty first century Britain.

This issue came to my attention recently when I was asked to open a new food bank in Bury St. Edmunds by that tireless community campaigner and civic figure, Ernie Broom. The food bank is located at Moreton Hall Community Centre and its doors opened on Friday 9 November.

People have turned to food banks across the civilised world to provide sustenance in hard, austere economic times. Food banks began as an American phenomenon when John van Hengel from Arizona noticed that grocers threw away a large amount of food that they couldn’t sell. He began to ask the supermarkets to donate that food. Soon he had so much that he had to get help from a local church to help distribute it to those in need. In 1976 he was asked by the U.S. Government to set up a chain of food banks and by the time of his death there were 90,000 food banks across the USA.

British pioneers began to adopt and adapt this American concept about 12 years ago. The first British food bank was set up in Salisbury in 2000 by an organisation called the Trussell Trust. The Trust now runs 172 food banks and has an additional 91in the pipeline.

The Trussell Trust said it has fed almost 110,000 people since April this year. That is a staggering figure.

Young people, who tend as a group to be on lower incomes, are susceptible to increased prices. They are the predominant group in need of emergency food aid. Around 14,500 people in the UK aged between 16 and 24 visited food banks last year. The young made up 16 per cent of the total users of food banks despite the fact that they are only 11 per cent of the total British population.

The regions that have the highest number of food bank users are Wales and the South West. In East Anglia 0.16 per cent of our population has visited a food bank. This may sound like an insignificant number but that means that several thousand people in Suffolk had the need for a food bank last year.  

The executive chairman for the Trussell Trust explained that is was the recession that caused the surge in demand for food bank assistance: “when you've got people who are on the margin of just making it and there's another price rise, another change in their outgoings...something gives, and it is going to be the food... Day in, day out, food banks already meet UK parents who are going without food to feed their children, or are forced to consider stealing to stop their children going to bed hungry”.

That paints a pretty harrowing picture. Not one that you would ever think of applying to relatively affluent Suffolk.

But due to the extended downturn, savings for many low and middle income families have dried up. Part-time and shift workers can have their hours reduced without notice, cutting their income instantly. This, coinciding with a rise in the cost of food, transport, rent and energy bills means that some people find themselves increasingly unable to make ends meet.

So I want to support food banks which can step into the breach to help those whose financial backs are to the wall. They represent the best aspects of our society, with a community coming together to solve social problems.

There are some sceptics about, however. To them I say that food banks are careful not to encourage dependency by only allowing a maximum of three food parcels per year. Many food banks use a voucher system so that Jobcentres or GP surgeries can refer those who need help the most.

Not only are they a practical solution to a distressing problem but some food banks are run by the churches and so they offer a tangible way for Christian organisations to renew their connections with those in dire need. The Trussell Trust has said: “The Church has lost its relevance and maybe this is a way to find it again.” I think that is a rather sweeping statement, but it should not detract from the fact that recycling food is just a very practical, sensible thing to do which brings real benefit.  

Food banks get most of their donations from supermarkets, shops and restaurants. One charity called FareShare coordinates donations from big firms and distributed 8.6 million meals across the country last year. FareShare estimate that if only one per cent of all of the produce wasted by the food industry was donated each year an amazing 720 million meals could be provided.

Supermarkets, shops and restaurants throw away food that has reached its sell-by date despite the fact that it is still perfectly edible. It is shocking that so much food rots when there are so many who are wanting.

That’s why recently the House of Commons debated a Bill on unnecessary food waste that called for a redistribution of this vast amount of food to food bank charities. It’s just commonsense, to my way of thinking.

We simply should not get hung up about whether such charitable endeavours are “stigmatising” in some way. I’ll leave that debate to the moral philosophers. Instead, I just want to see a local problem solved in a practical way.  But, if I am honest, I am staggered this has not been done years before now.

Are there other lessons for us here? Well, we should try as a society to value food, and respect food more. It should not be viewed as a commodity that can be thrown away on a whim.

There are thousands of people this winter who will rely upon food banks. We should remember these people and encourage our local businesses and indeed ourselves to change attitudes to waste. More food could then go to help those most in need.