Dad facing difficult summer as food donations plunge
BBCA single father using a community larder to feed his family says he is facing a difficult summer as food donations fall and voucher schemes end.
Matthew uses the Millbrook Hub community larder in Castle Cary up to three times a week.
The father-of-two said: "Without it, I don't know what I'd do. The cost of living definitely has had an impact. Half the time, I can't afford food for myself."
Charity leaders have said donations to food banks and community larders have hit record lows and they face an uncertain future.
Matthew said this summer was also going to be very difficult due to Somerset Council ending a scheme where families of children on free school meals automatically get supermarket vouchers over holidays.
"I'm going to have to stretch my budget even more this month, with great difficulty," he added.
Matthew, who cannot work at the moment because he is a full-time father for young children, said over the next six weeks he might have to call on friends to help him pay for food for his children.
However, council chiefs said food vouchers are still available through the Crisis and Resilience Fund, which replaced the previous Household Support Fund in April.
Due to food choice being limited at the larder, Matthew said he mainly used it for nappies, toilet roll, shampoo and some food for himself.
He then uses all the money he gets to pay for his children's food.
Recently, he has seen the number of donations at the larder fall and said everyone is "struggling" due to the cost of living crisis.
Mark Hutton, who helps run the Millbrook Hub community larder, said he had seen first-hand the drop in donations.
"It's a combination of everything," he said, explaining that supermarkets had reduced the availability of some items while people were "trying to save money".
Foodbank charity Trussell Trust said its North Bristol and South Gloucestershire branch was now buying more of its own stock than ever - a record of one in every four of the 15,045 it gave out in 2025.
Ellen Wood, the branch's CEO, said everyone was "feeling the pinch", and had seen people struggling "year after year" despite "so much generosity" from the community.
Most of the food shared by Trussell Trust is given by the public using donation points in supermarkets, but Wood said the number of items coming through this route had also dropped.
"If this trend keeps happening one or two years down the line, I don't know," she said.
"We can't keep buying food [and] if people can't afford to donate the food then we'll struggle."
Loki Stokes, the food bank's food logistics manager, added that he has "never seen our stock this low".
"We try to hold a week's buffer across all nine outlets, but this summer that's getting hard to promise," he said.
A Somerset Council spokesperson said the authority recognised that many households continue to face financial pressures due to the ongoing cost of living crisis.
"These pressures will increase for many families over the summer holidays.
"The three years of government funding provided through the Crisis and Resilience Fund enable us to build on our strong partnerships with organisations across Somerset, helping to ensure that residents who need support can access it close to where they live," they added.
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