26 April 2023 , 15:41
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A food bank in Edinburgh has been forced to make an emergency appeal after running out of supplies, stopping it from making up weekly packages families rely on.
One volunteer at the Edinburgh Food Project explained that demand for food banks is increasing and sadly many families are asking for packages that don't require turning on the oven because they cannot afford the fuel costs.
Demand usually peaks during school holidays because many children miss out on the free school meal they would get during the day which has a detrimental impact.
This week the food bank in Sighthill completely ran out of stock of essential items, such as UHT milk and food to make up meals.
Sad images showed the empty shelves at the busy Broomhouse food bank, with dozens of empty crates stacked up with no food in sight.
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Volunteer Sally Anne-Peek, 56, told EdinburghLive: "The demand has increased in line with the cost of living crisis.
"Often we can be short of a few items when we are making up the food packs such as sugar, tea, coffee, jam, tinned meat, and ready meals so we have to substitute with other items or just leave them out.
"But recently we have used up what back stock we have and the shelves are empty. I have never known us to run out of UHT milk, fruit Juice, and other basics.
"At the foodbank yesterday we were unable to make up the weekly packages that go out as we didn’t have the necessary food to go in them."
Sally added: "There is a huge huge demand at the moment - kids' holiday time is the worst as they don't get their free hot school meal and demand has increased significantly.
"We are being asked to provide food packages that don’t require switching on the oven because people can’t afford it. We now provide microwave-only food packages along with standard, vegan, vegetarian, and gluten-free ones."
An emergency appeal has now been launched at the Edinburgh Food Project.
It needs a minimum of 224 cartons of UHT milk, 209 cartons of long-life fruit juice, 195 jars of jam, 184 tins of cold meat, 166 tins of tinned fruit, 206 tins of vegetables, 180 ready meals and toilet rolls in the next three days to keep helping families in need.
The warehouse is open Monday to Friday 10am - 4pm, to accept donations of in-date, shelf-stable food that doesn't need to be refrigerated.
You can drop off food at Unit 12, New Lairdship Yards, EH11 3UY, call - 0131 444 0030 or donate money online here.
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