Food banks How crisis after crisis created an endless cycle of need

"I've sat and cried many times, feeling like I've let my kids down." Such is the heartbreaking description one Kent mother gives of the difficulties she has meeting her family's needs. She lives with four children under 13 in a rented flat in the coastal town of Herne Bay. She does not come to the door, but her partner passes a handwritten note relaying their meagre existence on benefits as the Guardian joins the local food bank's morning delivery round.

- Zoe Wood

"I have to be careful with electric and gas, and food has to be pound frozen food," she writes. "Snacks are a very rare treat. If it wasn't for the Canterbury food bank we would have nothing but pasta.

"At Christmas my children will have small stuff and that will mean less money on food, more stress and worry."

The charity is in the front line of an ongoing cost of living crisis that Rachel Reeves has promised to address in her budget next week with measures to slow price rises.

In 2019 the food bank, based on an industrial unit in nearby Whitstable, was giving out 450 parcels a month. Now, a typical month involves well over 1,100 parcels, and sometimes it's more than 1,400. The quantity of food going out the door puts the charity, which covers Canterbury, Whitstable and Herne Bay, in the top 5% of food banks in the country.

When these services were first established in the UK after the 2008 financial crisis, many thought they would outlive their value in two or three years. But on what is the Guardian's third visit to the food bank in four years this one shows no sign of reaching its use-by date.

In February 2022, the charity had gone from spending virtually nothing on food (as donations matched demand) to about £3,000 per month as the Covid crisis segued into a cost of living crisis. When we returned the following year its monthly food bill was £7,000. Today it is £10,000.