THE head of the region’s biggest emergency food provider claims it has seen its busiest month in its history.

Gareth Batty is chief executive of the Yorkshire arm of FareShare – one of the UK’s largest food charities – and has opened up on the immense challenge of providing emergency food support during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Mr Batty claimed the industry has had to change quickly in order to meet people’s needs, as community centres and schools close down and more people in need are having to stay at home.

“In March, we had our busiest month in 21 years,” he said. “And, since the beginning of March we have already distributed just over 200 tonnes of food.

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“Drop in centre cafes, school breakfast clubs and other places would come to get support. What we have found in the past four weeks is that those processes had to change.

“With social distancing rules, there is more of a demand for food parcels and hampers. We have had to quickly change our services.

“School closures were a major factors in some of those changes. The whole sector has had to remodel itself. in a short space of time. The base issues have not gone away – our provision has increased.”

As the lockdown continues, the charity has been working with Leeds City Council to help distribute food parcels to those in the city struggling to make ends meet.

“We have managed it really well,” he added. “Right from day one, we made a firm commitment that we would not be closing – we would evolve accordingly.

“It’s been a change but we are really well placed.

“There has been an increase – it seems to be stabilising and we are making sure food is being delivered to people.

“Local authorities have really been supportive, they have really ramped up their support through their own services to make sure that nobody is suffering.”

He added that the beginning of the lockdown was the toughest in terms of the charity’s supplies. He claimed there was one point where the warehouse was nearly empty, but as businesses ramped up production, there is now a steady supply of food.

“There are still people struggling but there are support systems where people can help and to be part of that.

“What we have seen is delays with the UK supply chain, but we are starting to see the supply come through. From next week there will be regular weekly deliveries.

“I think with any supply chain, it takes a but of readjustment. We used a lot of stock at first and it was emptied, but now the warehouse is restocked.”