THE Larder in West Lothian has organised a National Emergency Food Summit today to bring together leading stakeholders, academics and campaigners to find practical solutions that will ensure no one in Scotland goes hungry this winter.

The event will include sessions on the varying challenges facing different age groups who face food poverty and hunger – from school-aged children to pensioners. Central to our approach is the importance of food to nourish the brain, body and community.

A couple of weeks back as Halloween night fell on Scotland, doorbells were rung, letterboxes were chapped and doorknockers were knocked, but there were more houses than normal where guisers found no one to tell bad jokes or scare.

Many of us will know that some people each year draw the curtains and turn the lights off to signal their non-participation in a night of pranks and pumpkins, but this year far more families opted out because they were rationing their use of home energy and consumption of food.

For some Scots, turning the lights off and not buying in treats was down to the cost of living crisis and not much else. Now as shops have cleared the witches' hats and replaced them with elf ears, and shelves have been emptied of the excess monkey nuts and refilled with selection boxes, many people will still look on anxiously in the knowledge they are struggling to provide daily meals let alone festive treats.

The food emergency gripping Scotland is something we at The Larder are sadly all too familiar with. We provided more than 150,000 nutritious ready meals to vulnerable people during the pandemic and our Catalyst Kitchen programme continues to provide good food for people across West Lothian.

However, we are seeing the food crisis reach new levels of desperation for more and more people. Recent statistics from the Office of National Statistics revealed that the price of budget food alone rose by 17% in the year to September. Not only does this mean that people are facing higher costs, but it also means donations to food banks aren’t able to keep up with rising demand, meaning food banks having to buy more products to top up on donation levels.

The reality is that millions of people across the UK are already skipping meals and even more are struggling to put healthy meals on the table due to the cost-of-living crisis.

As an anti-poverty campaigner for more than 40 years, I believe this winter is going to be one of the most difficult in our lifetime. The numbers of people struggling to meet their basic needs are off the scale and a shameful indictment of the society we have become. As a society, as campaigners, it's time to take steps forward to tackle the food crisis. Yet, currently, despite the food insecurity facing so many people, we seem to be taking backward steps.

One person, who regularly receives good, nutritious meals from our Catalyst Kitchen programme, described having to forgo paying certain bills each month in order to buy food and the paradox of having no money to go out but not being able to afford to stay in the house either. Another told us she survives on just £280 every month and is making the hard choice between heating and eating and which utility bill she can afford to pay.

The Scottish Government’s focus on a cash-first response to food poverty is a welcome acknowledgement that low incomes need to be challenged, but such is the state of Scotland’s food emergency that we need a "cash first; food too" approach to ensure no one goes hungry this winter.

We need urgent action to put cash in pockets and good food in bellies and bolstering the cash-first approach should include things like the immediate expansion of free school meals as included in the STUC’s Scotland Demands Better campaign. However, we also need to think about how we feed the adults, including people at work. This necessitates collaboration between Government, councils and the third sector.

As we approach the festive period our summit is, we feel, essential. Some people will be filled with the exciting prospects of gift giving, spending time with friends and family and overindulging, others will be dreading the added costs that they are facing. But sadly, for many other Scots, Christmas, the winter weeks and months ahead will be filled with worry as they desperately try to stay warm and fed.

It is vital that organisations who are already on the ground getting food directly to people, attend this summit to explore what else can be done and what resources are needed – we cannot have a winter where vulnerable Scots are offered more warm words instead of hot meals.

Angela Moohan is CEO of The Larder

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