According to new data from The Bread and Butter Thing, a UK-based food waste charity/community-led food club that has already partnered with leading supermarkets like Morrisons, ASDA, Iceland, and Amazon, over 56% of their members are reporting that they have had to borrow more money than ever before.
It comes as people resort to creditors to help afford groceries, amid continued hardship in the UK.
Mark Game, CEO of The Bread and Butter Thing, a food waste redistribution charity/community-led food club that distributes 120 tonnes of food every week to its members, provided the following comment:
“News that there’s an increase in low income families using loan sharks and unsecured debt to pay for food should not come as a surprise. The pandemic was the earthquake before the financial tsunami. Couple that with increasing food costs due to Brexit and the war in Ukraine, and it is plain to see that life simply isn’t affordable for so many right now.
“At The Bread and Butter Thing we regularly survey our members to assess their financial resilience. Our recent data shows that almost 35% of members are borrowing money from informal sources, such as doorstep lenders, friends and pawnbrokers, to pay for everyday essentials, such as food and energy. Our members also tell us that the typical residual income left for food and other essentials is less than £100 per household per month.
“ONS data shows that the cost of food has risen more in the past three years than it did in the previous decade, with 1 in 20 people reporting that they had run out of food within the last two weeks, and could not afford to buy more.
Oxford University regularly assess the cost of the Eat Well Plate. Since 2019, the cost of eating healthily has almost doubled from £127 per month to £227 – simply put, people can’t afford to buy the food they need.
“We see this impact in real-time, with 23,000 more people signing up to our food community in the past year, taking our total membership to 80,000. More support for people like our members is crucial, and we call on those in power to take the time to understand the precarious nature of many people’s situations.
“Over half our members – 56% – are reporting that they are borrowing more money or using more credit than they have done in previous years, with some relying on doorstep loans with crippling interest. This data isn’t available in the official stats that the government reviews and therefore they are missing the scale of the issue.
“There is a rising tide of demand for ‘no questions asked’ borrowing but we have to recognise why. Life just isn’t affordable right now for so many everyday families in the UK and loan sharks and others are certainly enjoying the spoils of feeding on the increasing number of vulnerable families.
‘Whoever or whatever the next Government looks like, it really needs to focus on low-income families, as they’ve run out of any sensible options to get by, despite their best efforts”.
