Significantly more people – admissions stopped at a third of the panels

The food banks in Germany have recorded a sharp increase in the number of people in need since the beginning of the year. The spokeswoman for Tafeln Deutschland, Anja Verres, told the Evangelisches Pressedienst (epd) in Berlin that almost all facilities had stated in the summer that they had 50 percent more users than in 2021. For some, the number of customers had doubled.

For example, the increase in facilities in North Rhine-Westphalia has been more than 40 percent since the beginning of the Ukraine war, said the spokeswoman for the state association, Petra Jung, of the “Neuen Ruhr/Neuen Rhein Zeitung” in Essen. "Before the Ukraine war started, we had around 350,000 customers nationwide, now there are at least 500,000," Jung said. Among them are many new customers, such as refugees from Ukraine. But pensioners who stayed away because of the Corona crisis because they are now “anxiously waiting for the coming energy bills” are also coming back.

This trend can be observed across Germany, said Verres. Even before the start of the Ukraine war, more customers came to the food banks because inflation was already picking up back then. "With the beginning of the war, the numbers went up again significantly," said Verres.

She pointed out that the need is even greater. But around a third of the boards in Germany would have imposed admission stops. The spokeswoman for the North Rhine-Westphalian state association said that it was "an enormous psychological burden for the volunteers" if they had to send away people who were actually entitled to buy food from the food banks.

At the same time, the supply is decreasing, said Verres: "Food donations are in some cases falling significantly." Supermarkets could give less because the supply chains were disrupted as a result of war and Corona. There is a lack of food, in other cases of packaging material. In addition, the supermarkets from which the food banks get their groceries calculate more pointedly, said Jung: "There is less left for us." Monetary donations have also been declining since the beginning of the Ukraine war.