With more and more people battling through the hard times, we are facing as a country; food banks are becoming more prevalent and important to society, having emerged as a saviour to lots of communities.

A lot of British people rely on food banks to provide them food and financial relief in an extremely harsh British economic climate.

Food Banks are available to all members of the public, often used by people on the edge of poverty who perhaps cannot afford to supply themselves or their family’s meals without the donations and support of local food banks.

With living costs and food prices rising continuously the demand for local food banks is increasing with people just not being able to afford food on top of other costs like raised rent and energy bills.

Food banks have seen a dramatic increase in openings over the last 15 years. The Trussell Trust a Christianity based charity that support the largest network of food banks in the UK, had around 35 food bank centres in 2010/11, 650 in 2013/14 and nearly 1300 in 2019/20.

There are currently 2800 food banks in Britain and approximately 3.12 million people used a food bank in 2023, which is around 5% of the British population.

Food banks operate on charitable donations by members of the public and food suppliers who donate stock. They are mainly run by volunteers who give up their free time to help others.

Food banks first emerged in the US but are now well established in Australia and Canada, as well as some Scandinavian countries, and have multiplied rapidly in the UK and other European countries in the past two decades with the first European food bank opening in 1984 in Paris.

Currently one third of all food worldwide ends up as waste. This figure is astonishingly high and needs to be addressed as just a portion of that figure could go a long way to helping struggling families. Food banks are part of the solution to lowering this figure as they provide a place where unused and unwanted produce can be donated and used instead of being thrown away and wasted.

Here at Onit Direct we are proud to regularly supply food banks across Britain.  We especially enjoy working with the fantastic employees and volunteers that keep them running.  To operate effectively food banks need to efficiently store and organise the large number of donations they receive, which is where we assist.  We provide food banks with multiple items to aid in the storage, organisation and distribution of the food items. Such as bale arm type supermarket crates designed for food supply chains, these versatile crates offer good value and maximise space.  Our range of wheeled dollies are the perfect partner to help move large numbers of crates and boxes throughout the facility.  Other items widely used by food banks include space saving foldable crates,bread trays, roll cages and mobile storage bins.

We will continue to support food banks and are very proud to play a small part in the amazing work food banks are doing across the country.