KEY POINTS:
Hungry families are facing empty shelves in some foodbanks as social agencies are squeezed between rising need and dwindling donations.
Foodbanks throughout the country are reporting a big jump in families seeking food parcels even before New Zealand faces many of the mass layoffs caused by the recession overseas.
But some supermarkets are tightening up and have less leftover food to give away, and cash funders such as Auckland's ASB Trust and Tauranga's Bay Trust have suspended grants because of huge losses on their investments.
The shelves at Presbyterian Support Northern's foodbank, which services needy families at Auckland City Hospital and throughout the region, were mostly bare when the Herald visited last week.
Co-ordinator Roy Rennie said he gave out 225 food parcels in December - twice as many as in the same month in 2007. But supplies were shrinking. "A lot of stock used to be short-dated, coming up for its use-by date, so a lot of companies donated it to foodbanks," he said.
"With the economic times, there has been a cutback in demand so a lot of companies that were providing bulk amounts are being more efficient, so there's not as much wastage.
"They are also putting the short-dated stock in the bargain bin and selling it."
His manager, Maureen Little, said the foodbank had also lost its funding from the ASB Trust, which had been paying $55,000 a year for the agency to buy food items that were not donated. The trust has cancelled its first funding round this year and will have only one round in the second half of the year.
National figures released yesterday by the Salvation Army, which runs the country's biggest network of foodbanks, show that families seeking food parcels were up by 38 per cent from the same time last year in the last quarter of 2008, and by 23 per cent in January.
The army's social policy director, Major Campbell Roberts, said that although the country was yet to see mass layoffs, many families were losing part-time and casual jobs and overtime.
"It's been tough, but they have been managing because of the extra hours they've been doing, or they've been able to supplement their income with casual work. All of those opportunities are dropping off," he said.
Families were also being squeezed by higher food prices. The Salvation Army's "low-income consumer price index", based on staple items bought by the poorest families, rose by 6.4 per cent in the year to last September when the official consumers price index rose by only 4.8 per cent.
Some areas are already seeing redundancies. The co-manager of the St Vincent de Paul foodbank in Rotorua, Connie Wilson, said two out of every 10 people she saw had come back after the Christmas break and been told there was no more work.
"It's a lot in the building trade and a lot of older people, labouring work mainly. We've also had a few forestry workers - people who generally have four or five children who have lost forestry and bush work."
Several foodbank providers, such as the Tornado Community Youth Trust in Hikurangi, near Whangarei, and Mercy Mission at Papakura, have established gardens to grow their own vegetables.
Others have covered the shortfall from trusts by appealing to their communities. The Tauranga Community Foodbank raised $10,045 from local businesses and individuals over Christmas to replace the $10,000 a year it used to get from the Bay Trust.
But Major Roberts said the real challenge was yet to come. "If unemployment goes to anything like the levels that are being predicted, we will have a very significant issue."
* How to donate:
Northland
- Far North Community Foodbank Trust, c/o Rose Walker, PO Box 406, Kaitaia,
(09) 408-0212.
- Tornado Community Youth Trust,
31 King St, Hikurangi, (09) 433-8009.
Auckland
- Auckland City Mission Foodlink,
136-140 Hobson St, (09) 377-4452
(supplies 70 foodbanks from Northland to Thames).
- Presbyterian Support Northern,
Private Bag 93126, Henderson,
(09) 838-1426.
- Mercy Mission, Sutton Rd, RD4, Papakura, (09) 298-2256.
Hamilton
Combined Christian Foodbank, PO Box 13117, Hamilton, (07) 856-2521.
Bay of Plenty
- Tauranga Community Foodbank,
Dive Cres, PO Box 8146, Cherrywood,
(07) 578-9888.
- St Vincent de Paul, 227 Old Taupo Rd, Rotorua, (07) 347-7376.
- St John's Church, cnr Victoria & Ranolf Sts, Rotorua, (07) 348-2954.
- Salvation Army
Credit card donations 0800-53-00-00. Ministries in local phone books.
