\u201cWe, as a charity, are also hit by national insurance contribution rises,\u201d Hill said. \u201cWe pay them in the same way every other employer does. We\u2019re also a proud Living Wage employer<\/a> and, as wages go up, we have to make sure our own colleagues are paid the right amount to be able to survive with cost-of-living increases. We\u2019ve got our own fuel costs, we have to get the food all around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cInflation is hitting us, but all of the very small charities, the 8,000 charities we take our food to, about a third of them have less than \u00a310,000 a year to spend. They\u2019re often community organisations, often run by volunteers, supporting the most vulnerable in their communities, and if we can\u2019t get food to them, they won\u2019t be able to deliver their service.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n #People who never thought they\u2019d be in food insecurity are impacted\u2019<\/p>\n Hill explained that as a consequence of the war\u2019s impact on fuel prices, against the backdrop of the continuing cost-of-living crisis in the UK, people who \u201cnever thought they\u2019d be in food insecurity\u201d are struggling, especially during the Easter holidays which means children may not be able to access free school meals<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cYou imagine, if you\u2019re a person who is in work, but on a low wage, and you\u2019ve got to put fuel in your car to get to work, and you\u2019ve got to pay your increased rent<\/a> or mortgage, and your fuel costs are going up, and probably your rent and mortgage has gone up in recent times or is about to again. You\u2019ve got to pay increased energy costs, and you\u2019ve got no choice but to pay those things,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only elastic part of your outgoings once you\u2019ve paid all of those things is your food, and so what we are hearing from people now is people who never thought they\u2019d be in food insecurity\u2026 simply cannot afford to put food on the table for themselves and their families once they paid all those other big costs that were going up.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill told Big Issue that some food suppliers and farmers who have been impacted by increasing fertiliser and fuel costs are estimating that food inflation caused by the conflict could last \u201cthrough to at least 2028\u201d.<\/p>\n She explained that during this crisis, the UK must use every bit of food we create, which is where FareShare and The Felix Project\u2019s distribution of surplus food is so important.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are working alongside the government on trying to look at a longer term plan of how we can, first of all, end avoidable food waste, but where it\u2019s not avoidable, how can we treble food redistribution,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve done some brilliant work with us. We want to work with government on things like subsidies for farmers and tax incentives to get food into our system and mandatory food waste reporting. All the things the government could do that would massively reduce the friction of getting the food into our system, and then we could get it out to thousands of charities who could do social good with that food.\u201d<\/p>\n Hill underlined that despite the government\u2019s work on food insecurity, the US-Iran war has caused a \u201cfood crisis\u201d, and if nothing is done about it, \u201cit\u2019s the poorest who will suffer.\u201d<\/p>\n Rod Williams, managing director of Crest Co-Operative<\/a> in North Wales, a charity which receives food from FareShare and The Felix Project, explained that the conflict in the Middle East has \u201calready had a real impact on our service\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhilst we remain committed to supporting those in most need in our community, the cost of food has increased, and the costs of our collection network, collecting donated good from across Conwy County has also increased sharply,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen you combine this with increased fuel costs and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, we are seeing an influx of new people in need of our services.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt is clear to me that if the conflict does not end soon, or support for these services do not increase, then many foodbanks may struggle to continue to meet the demand with these increased prices,\u201d Williams said, adding that Crest has set up an evening foodbank service to \u201ccope with the increased demand.\u201d<\/p>\n Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Advertising helps fund Big Issue\u2019s mission to end poverty<\/p>\n Change a vendor\u2019s life.<\/p>\n Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week \u2013 and always take the magazine. It\u2019s how vendors earn with dignity and move forward.<\/p>\n You can also support online:\u00a0Subscribe to the magazine<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0support our work with a monthly gift<\/a>. Your support helps vendors earn, learn and thrive while strengthening our frontline services.<\/p>\n Thank you for standing with Big Issue vendors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Read more: The way FareShare and The Felix Project works is by \u201crescuing\u201d surplus food from every part…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[1635,1977,4631,1259,1449,18,1073,5,6,4632],"class_list":{"0":"post-9452","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"tag-cost-of-living-crisis","9":"tag-food-inflation","10":"tag-food-poverty","11":"tag-inflation","12":"tag-iran-war","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-poverty","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-us-iran-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/116368842599990977","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/RS4530_exp-310825-IMG_7436-.jpg\")
Many families across the UK will feel the effects of food inflation. Image: FareShare and The Felix Project<\/p>\n