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POVERTY

Germany sees ‘alarming’ increase in number of food bank users

From the outside, Germany is viewed as a prosperous country with low unemployment. But new figures shed light on the increasing number of people turning to food banks.

Published: 19 September 2019 11:28 CEST
Updated: 19 September 2019 12:33 CEST
Germany sees 'alarming' increase in number of food bank users
More pensioners are turning to food banks in Germany. Photo: Dagmar Schwelle/Tafel Deutschland e.V.

The number of people using food banks in Germany has risen by 10 percent in a year, new figures show.

A total of 1.65 million people regularly used food banks within the last year, up from 1.5 million in the previous 12 months, according to figures published by the non-profit Tafel Deutschland e.V, Germany's umbrella organization for food banks.

The German Tafel (the German word for “table” which is used to refer to food banks) research found an even more dramatic rise in the number of older people seeking support.

They found 20 percent more pensioners – an extra 75,000 – accessed food bank services in the last year compared to the previous year. 

It comes after a study published last week found more than one in five pensioners in Germany could face old-age poverty in 20 years.

The NGO, which has 947 food banks in Germany, has called for action.

“This development is alarming – and it is only the beginning,” warned chairman of the German Tafel, Jochen Brühl.

Food banks collect food that would otherwise be thrown away. Photo: Dagmar Schwelle/Tafel Deutschland e.V.

“Old-age poverty will overrun us in the coming years. Politicians cannot wait any longer, they must act now. Far-reaching reforms and binding, interdepartmental goals are needed to combat poverty in Germany. The time for small steps is over.”

Who uses food banks in Germany?

People who’ve been unemployed for a long time make up the largest proportion (47 percent) of food bank users. They are followed by pensioners (26 percent) and asylum seekers (20 percent).

The increase in the number of children and young people accessing Tafeln (food banks) is also growing – almost 50,000 more young people were dependent on food support in the last year compared to the previous year.

Brühl said Germany was “systematically neglecting children”.

“Those who are poor as children have little chance of freeing themselves from the cycle of poverty,” he said.

READ ALSO: EXPLAINED: How Germany plans to fix its stark regional inequalities

'Immoral cycle of waste'

Food banks in Germany collect surplus food from traders and distribute it to people throughout the country with the help of around 60,000 volunteers.

Around 265,000 tons of unwanted food – that's 500 kg every minute – was recovered in the last year by the food bank association.

However, the amount could be even higher, because up to 18 million tons of food is thrown away every year in Germany. Yet food banks lack the cash to buy more refrigerated vehicles and storage facilities – and above all they need more volunteers.

As part of the UN's sustainability goals, Germany has committed itself to halving food waste by 2030. “From the point of view of food banks, we have reached a turning point,” said Brühl.

The organization is calling for financial support from the government in order to save more unwanted food and distribute it.

“We must stop the senseless, immoral cycle of waste and destruction – for social and ecological reasons,” said Brühl.

“As long as we in Germany throw away up to 18 million tonnes of food every year and, on the other hand, people are no longer able to pay for food at the end of the month, our commitment is bitterly necessary.”

READ ALSO: 'No one in Germany would go hungry if food banks didn't exist'

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POVERTY

Queuing for food handouts: How the pandemic has left thousands more going hungry in Spain

A year after the pandemic hit Spain, the need for food handouts has soared in the country, especially by workers in the sectors hit hardest by the economic crisis that followed.

Published: 19 March 2021 09:22 CET
Queuing for food handouts: How the pandemic has left thousands more going hungry in Spain
Reina Chambi, 39, queues to receive food aid outside San Ramon Nonato parish in Madrid. Photos: Oscar del Pozo/AFP

Although her face is covered by a black mask, Rita Carrasco still wears bright red lipstick. But her easy smile faltered when she had to join Madrid’s “hunger lines” for food aid.

“It was a hard moment. I felt shame,” says the 41-year-old Mexican, who lost her job as a theatre teacher when Spain’s tight lockdown began in March 2020.

Since then, she has not been able to find work and has used up all her savings.

Over the past year, the demand for food packages has soared in Spain, especially among those employed in sectors worst-hit by the resulting economic crisis.

Last year, the Catholic charity Caritas said it helped half a million people who had never before asked for food packages.

Since December, Carrasco (pictured above) has been going every Friday to a soup kitchen in Carabanchel, a working-class neighbourhood in southern Madrid, to collect a box of groceries.

She also helps distribute food as a volunteer.

“Giving and receiving changes your perspective,” she says.

Beans and fruit

Wearing yellow vests, the volunteers hand out fruit, cereal and beans at a church building to those lining up in a narrow street outside.

The neighbourhood has a high immigrant population and many in the queue are Latin American women.

People used to be able to eat a hot meal onsite, but virus restrictions now mean they can only serve food to take away.

It is one of four soup kitchens opened last spring by the Alvaro del Portillo charity.

Before the pandemic, there was only one, which served around 900 people.

Since then the number of people using the soup kitchens has soared to around 2,000.

“As the months have gone by, we’ve noticed things easing,” says Susana Hortigosa, who runs the charity.

“Although the level of demand is still higher than before the pandemic, it has dropped slightly because people have started getting their furlough payouts or have found a few hours of work” as the economy has picked up, although most still need help, she says.

The leftwing coalition government of Pedro Sanchez has unblocked €40 billion ($48 billion) since the start of the crisis to fund the furlough scheme.

But with the administration overrun with claims, it has often taken months for the payouts to materialise.

‘A great help’

Such was the case with Reina Chambi (pictured below), a 39-year-old carer for the elderly whose husband was employed at a hotel. When the pandemic hit, they were both left jobless.

“My husband stopped working completely and they took a long time to make the furlough payment so we had to turn to the church for help,” says the mother-of-two, waiting outside a soup kitchen in the freezing wind in the Vallecas district.

While the payout has given the family some breathing room, the couple are still jobless, meaning they still need food packages.

“It’s a great help because we don’t have to buy milk, chickpeas, noodles, those things at least. And we can spend (the payout) on detergent or meat,” says Chambi, who misses the “stable life” she enjoyed after arriving from Bolivia 15 years ago.

Even before 2019, official figures showed more than one in four people in Spain were at risk of poverty or social exclusion, one of the highest rates in Europe.

And the pandemic has left the most vulnerable even more at risk.

“It’s so frustrating. Each time I try to escape this situation, something else happens,” sighs Amanda Gomez, 53.

Divorced just before the pandemic, she is raising two children on her own, one with Down’s Syndrome, on a cleaner’s tiny salary.

But she’s not ready to give up — a keen cook, she’s looking up recipes online to “make the most” of the food she’s got, and she is also beginning to bake cakes to order and deliver them to people’s homes.

The hope is that one day she might be able to open her own bakery.

“You dream big because dreaming doesn’t cost anything,” she says.

“What I want is to be able to go to the local church without asking for anything. Just to help out.”

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