One in four community organisations cannot meet demands of cost-of-living crisis

Every Tuesday and every second Friday night Homeless Help and Support Cork set up on St  Patrick Street, Cork, to hand out hot meals and clothes. Picture: Dan Linehan

A quarter of community organisations dealing with people in the grip of the cost-of-living crisis are unable to meet demand, according to FoodCloud.

The organisation, which works with more than 600 Irish charities and community groups, facilitating food donations from retailers every day, also said they expected the situation to get worse.

A new report by FoodCloud, compiled with academics from Trinity College Dublin and Atlantic Technological University so as to understand more about the benefits and challenges of surplus food redistribution during Covid-19, has shown that surplus food distribution does demand resources and there are hidden costs associated with it to make it work.

But a survey of the charities and community groups in its network, carried out last May, has made some alarming findings. 

According to the survey:

• 73% of respondent community organisations said they were experiencing an increase in demand for food;
• 25% of all organisations were not currently meeting the demand in their areas;
• 65% of organisations expect that this demand is going to continue to grow over the next few months.

The situation is likely to have worsened since May as energy prices continue to spiral upwards.

Yet FoodCloud said it would use the findings from the Covid-19 report so as to better employ the food redistribution model and help more people.

According to the report: "On average, over 3,500 tonnes of food are redistributed through FoodCloud’s channels in Ireland every year. Based on the tonnage of food redistributed and the shadow price of carbon, it is estimated that the monetary value of waste prevented annually in 2018-2021 by FoodCloud is €7.6m.

"It is estimated that FoodCloud distributed approximately €13.1m worth of food to community groups in Ireland in 2021."

The report found that the pandemic restrictions meant that communal eating was curtailed, so community and voluntary organisations needed to find new ways to stay connected.

"Community food services, including delivery of meals, food products and food parcels, emerged as an excellent way to create and maintain contact with community members," it said.

This effort of connection resulted in new or expanded direct deliveries to community members of food items, larger food parcels, and partially cooked or cooked meals. 

To do this, community voluntary organisations (CVOs) showcased their resilience and responsiveness by establishing new strategies around labour and logistics.

"With or without a pandemic, the work involves volunteers and employees; physical labour; emotional labour and empathy; organisational and managerial capacities; knowledge skills, techniques, experience and know-how; and technology and infrastructure. All these bring challenges and opportunities for CVOs."

It said participating in surplus food distribution "is a lot of work and responsibility in the context of a sector where many are under-resourced and where food is often not their core work", but had the potential to provide important benefits to CVOs and their communities, even as "individuals may experience shame when reaching out for food support, however CVOs work very hard to design and deliver inclusive and community-building approaches to food provision to reduce the risk of stigmatising people."

The report is being launched on Monday.