More than 10k food parcels are given out

MORE than 10,000 emergency food parcels were given to Plymouth households struggling to feed themselves last year with thousands going to children.

- AMBER EDWARDS

That's according to the Trussell Trust, which gave out more than two million food parcels via its food banks across the UK in the year to March.

Its Plymouth foodbanks gave out 10,290 emergency food parcels in 2021-22, of which 3,535 were for children. That was down from 10,581 the previous year, during the height of the pandemic, but was still above the 9,501 in 2019-20 and 8,251 five years earlier.

Nationally, 2.2 million parcels were provided, of which more than 832,000 went to children. That was down from 2.6 million the previous year but was still a 14% increase from 2019-20. Parcels can provide three days or (since early 2020) a week's worth of supplies.

The trust said its figures did not reflect the true scale of the problem because it did not account for food banks outside its own network.