FROM nurses, bus drivers, elderly residents to the young and the disabled, the sheer quantity of Oldhamers using food hubs is laying bare the stark reality of the cost-of-living crisis.

As a queue of people begins to snake around the Bethesda Church car park in Royton on a Wednesday afternoon as volunteers rush to pack 80 bags of food the impact of rising bills becomes sharply evident.

“This time last year the numbers started to drop but this year they have gone through the roof. The services are full. You can really see that people are feeling the pinch.

“Everything has gone up and people cannot afford food”, Dave Brereton, community impact manager at First Choice Homes (FCHO), which runs the food hub service in partnership with The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT) charity, explains.

Dave helped launch the Oldham food hubs in November 2019 in response to the rising number of people struggling with austerity.

The service, which offers weekly food bags at a discounted rate, was initially only for FCHO customers but has now expanded and caters for residents referred by the Oldham Council to meet growing demand. Cat Jones, 27, who lives in Manchester and is studying law, has been volunteering at the food hubs in Oldham since October 2020.

“When I first started there was a volunteer at the Sholver hub who was Nigerian, and I’ll never forget the shock on her face when she first started volunteering.

“I remember her saying to me you’re Britain why do you have food banks? and I couldn’t give her an answer.

“We serve all kinds of different people, I’ve served a nurse and a bus driver who came in his uniform after work. I’ve also met people who feel embarrassed to come here.”

During the height of the pandemic, Cat began using the food hub service herself and said that although she has never felt embarrassed about using the service, she knows some people do.

“I don’t think individuals should feel ashamed, but I think as a nation we should be ashamed. There are people working full times jobs that need to use this service. If you’re in a full-time job, sometimes two jobs, and still having to come here there is a problem”, she said.

Jackie Roberts, 51, from Royton, is an FCHO customer and has been using the service since it launched, saving an average of £50 a week.

She said: “There are still people who think it’s like a food bank and are ashamed and embarrassed, but I don’t get that. It’s not like a food bank you are still paying for the food.

“My husband’s cousin is a prime example because she doesn’t want any of the family knowing she’s coming but she’s not very well and lives on her own, so it helps her.”

The Oldham Times:

Customer Jackie Roberts and Naomi Martin-Smith, a learning and development coordinator at FCHO.

The stigma surrounding the use of the service becomes evident when I try to find other service users to speak to.

Naomi Martin-Smith, a learning and development coordinator at FCHO who helps facilitate the food hub service, tells me that some people have not told their family they are here.

“People come with their Covid masks on and hoods up”, she tells me.

One man that is willing to speak is Mark Bye,50, from Shaw, who is in the queue with a friend that does not want to be named.

“I’ve been using the service for 18 months, it’s an invaluable help. In one bag for £7.50 I got three tins of corned beef just that alone would cost £7 at the supermarket.

“It’s subsidised food so you get something different every time, it’s not like at a food bank where you just get baked beans. I’m saving at least £25 a week if not more. Long live the TBBT service.”

The food hub’s £7.50 service includes three bags of shopping, which consists of a bag of fruit and veg, a bag of cupboard staples, including cereals and breads, and a fridge bag containing chilled items.

There is also a £15 option if customers want to double up which is six bags.

Single people can opt for a £4 bag, which contains a selection of items, and there is also a freezer bag available for £3.50.

There are currently five food hubs in Oldham and more than 2,500 customers registered for the service, with new customers being registered every week.

Around 225 people use the service weekly, on Wednesday in just Royton alone 76 bags of food were distributed.

The refrigerated van has the capacity to carry up to 80 bags and there are times when the service becomes oversubscribed, and people are turned away.

Cat noticed that the number of people using service began to rise in September before climbing again in October when the uplift to universal credit was scrapped.

“There have been times over the past few weeks where the service has been oversubscribed. I absolutely hate turning people away but there have been times when I’ve had to.

“Over the last few months, we have literally been selling out of everything which didn’t happen over Covid”, she said.

Dave tells me he does not foresee a time in “the near future” when the food hub service will no longer needed but assures me it is a “sustainable long-term option” as it uses surplus food from providers, including Amazon and Morrisons, that would otherwise go to landfill.

“For a lot of people, it’s a choice between food and heating and we want to ensure people can afford the absolute basics.”

The other locations of Oldham food hubs are Wallshaw Street Community Centre, Sholver and Moorside Community Hub, ROC ‘n’ Rolls Community Cafe in Holts and NEON in Greenacres.