The number of Hackney residents relying on the food bank has risen three-fold since the pandemic, with new data from Hackney Foodbank showing a 300% increase on 2020 figures.
In 2025, Hackney Foodbank supported more than 7,000 residents, who were provided with 302,751 emergency meals.Of these, 65 per cent goes to families with children per week on average.
Jenna Fansa, Head of Fundraising at Hackney Foodbank, said: “The stats say a lot, but they do not reveal just how bleak things are. We regularly see parents skip meals so their children can eat and people isolated in cold homes because they can’t afford to go out.”
Last October, the English Indices of Deprivation Report 2025 revealed that 64 per cent of Hackney children live in income-deprived households.
“This report makes for grim reading – it reveals levels of deprivation among children have worsened considerably in Hackney in recent years.”
Pat Fitzsimons, CEO of Hackney Foodbank
Eve, a mother-of-three, survives on only one meal a day. She lives on the eleventh floor of an apartment block and believes “it’s more important” her daughter eats than herself.
She said she feels “trapped” at home when the lift does not work, struggles to pay for her children’s school uniforms, and sometimes cannot afford to take them to school.
When Hackney Foodbank interviewed Eve, her daughter was not at school – the £11.50 trip that day was more than she could manage.
Now, the food bank provides Eve with a standard emergency food parcel, nappies, wet wipes, jars of baby food, and fresh fruit and vegetables.
She said: “The food bank is a life saver – I don’t know what we would do without them.”
Last week, Trussell, a UK anti-poverty charity, announced that London food banks provided 1,212 food parcels per day in 2025.
Trussell has called on the government to lift the freeze on Local Housing Allowance and create a permanent link between rents and support.
Helen Barnard, Director of Policy and Research at Trussell, said: “Too many people across the capital are still being pushed to the brink. The pandemic and cost of living crisis have left deep scars. Severe hardship still weighs heavily on daily lives, leaving people overlooked and left behind.”
In Hackney, the food bank recently launched its No Child Left Hungry campaign to raise vital funds for emergency food for children.
Visit: https://www.hackney.foodbank.org.uk/no-child-left-hungry
