Flintshire foodbank: How do they feed 8,000 people a year?

With food prices, energy prices and fuel prices all rising since the start of 2022, more and more people are unfortunately having to make use of the foodbank facilities across the region. 

Between April 2021 and March 2022, Flintshire Foodbank provided food to 7,791 people, 3,412 of those were children.

Facts like that should not be a thing in 2022, yet it is a stark reality that with the current financial demands being placed upon people, they cannot afford to buy food. 

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It is worth remembering that the foodbank is not the only food source in Flintshire, there are more services becoming available to help people, including the Wel-Fed Scheme in Shotton. 

Around 60 volunteers give their time to the foodbank every week, whether that be in the warehouse, at the sites across the region, or in the trucks collecting and delivering the food. 

99% of food delivered to the foodbank is donated, which considering the pressures people are under is staggering and highlights the caring nature of the borough. 

Those donations are collected at various points in the area (supermarkets, donation points etc.) and dropped off at the warehouse. 

A team of volunteers will then dissect every donation, meticulously dating each donation, before storing it alongside similar foods. 

The food is dated and organised before being delivered to the sites

Once the food has been organised and sorted, whatever is needed at the sites will be collected and delivered, this process happens twice a week. Deliveries go to the sites on Tuesday's and Friday's depending on what type of foods are needed. 

It is an extremely well organised process that has been going for almost 10 years. They have had to expand during that time due to the increasing numbers of people needing to use their facilities, but everyone plays their part. 

You'd maybe assume with foodbank's that donations get dropped off and people can just go down and pick up some food, yet that is miles off what actually goes on.

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There is a strong attitude amongst everyone I spoke to, that they don't want to create a dependency on the foodbank. While they acknowledge that people need to use the facility, they want to avoid people becoming dependent on them. 

To help with this, vouchers are created, which lets the foodbank know the volumes of food needed - depending on the size of the family, this is all packaged up and ready for collection. 

The foodbank turnover hundreds of donations a week and insist they will never have enough food to distribute

One volunteer who splits their time between the warehouse and the sites discussed how pleasing it is to be able to help people.

They said: "You have people come in to start with that are embarrassed about having to use a foodbank, but by the time they leave they are so grateful for the help they have been given. 

"People just want to help other people and if we can do that then it's great."

Another volunteer added: "There is a stigma around using foodbanks. You'll get people that won't want to come and they'd rather not eat than visit the foodbank. 

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"We've got a really good group of volunteers here and you end up making friendships with people, which is nice."

The welcoming nature of all the volunteers was refreshing and the work that they are doing to help so many people is staggering. 

The amount of donations at the warehouse is also a huge credit to the community and shows how people want to help, no matter what the circumstances.

The worrying part about it all is that there is a belief that things are only going to get worse and despite the hundreds of donations that come in, the foodbank need them to keep coming in order to maintain the service.