LONDON (dpa-AFX) - Faced with rising consumer prices and growing poverty, food banks in the United Kingdom say they are experiencing the highest demand in their history. "This is the busiest time independent food banks in the UK have ever experienced, and for many the growing demand is causing problems," Sabine Goodwin, chief executive of the umbrella organization Independent Food Aid Network, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur.

"It is clearer than ever that charitable aid is neither sustainable nor acceptable as a response to escalating poverty," Goodwin said. Rather, he said, people need support payments as well as wages that can pay for food for themselves and their families.

Inflation in the U.K. was recently around 11 percent, and even higher when limited to food. The U.K. economy is mired in recession and has barely recovered from the pandemic low compared to other countries. Brexit has caused trade with the largest market on its doorstep - the European Union - to plummet.

The Conservative British government actually took office at the beginning of the legislative period with the promise of "levelling up" - in other words, adjusting living conditions in all parts of the country upwards. But little has happened since then: In the north of England in particular, many regions have been left behind and child poverty is high. Because of the consequences of the Ukraine war, the situation has worsened.

According to the Trussell Trust, which includes 1,300 food banks in the UK, more than 1.3 million emergency food parcels have already been handed out this year from April to September - a third more than in the same period last year and one and a half times as much as before the pandemic. In addition, 320,000 people turned to the food banks for the first time during the six-month period. That's 40 percent more than in the same period in 2021.

Storage and refrigeration of donated food is a problem for some food banks, limiting their capacity to receive donations. King Charles III, through one of his foundations, has made a major donation that will fund at least 800 refrigerators and freezers for food banks and similar organizations. Organizations had previously reported that in previous years, food donations around Christmas had sometimes had to be rejected because they could not have been refrigerated./swe/DP/zb