01-08-2025
30 percent of people seeking help are doing so for the first time - NZ Food Network charity
New data from Stats NZ shows average household costs went up 6.2 per cent in the last year.
Photo:
LDR / Alka Prasad
A food charity says many New Zealanders are asking for help for the very first time.
The New Zealand Food Network said
food insecurity had gotten worse
since Covid-19 and donations were only meeting about 65 percent of the need.
Chief executive Gavin Findlay said the charity, which this week celebrated its fifth anniversary, now supported about 500,000 people a month.
"It is tough, we are funded to a certain level of support we can give and we know anecdotally through our network that we're only meeting about 65 percent of the
need that the frontline are seeing
," he said.
"Everybody's
seeing more demand
, we've got organisations that would normally deal with 50 to 100 people a day are now doing 220 a day. That's not uncommon throughout the country."
He said about 30 percent of people seeking help were doing so for the very first time.
"Now we're seeing people who have never reached out for food support before, we're seeing dual-income households reaching out that have never done before," Findlay said.
"On lots of occasions people have exhausted their means of support, whether it be their own financial resources or their family or network, and they're just now in situations where they need external help."
Findlay said asking for help could be very difficult for people.
"Asking for help can be a real challenge, in the environment we're in now it's a tough gig to put out your hand and say 'I just can't support myself and my family, do you have some food to help me with?' It's a tough environment," he said.
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