Community shops 'provide dignity and choice' for Scots struggling with cost of living
by Chris McCall, https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/authors/chris-mccall/ · Daily RecordGet the latest Daily Record breaking news on WhatsApp
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Community shops offering discounted groceries to Scots struggling with the cost of living could help reduce dependency on food banks, campaigners have said.
The initiative is being driven by the Good Food Scotland network which works with housing associations and local charities to open stores - known as larders - in communities which often lack regular retail outlets.
Customers pay a small monthly fee of as little as £1 to sign-up for access to the community shop, which offers a range of discounted provisions and household items.
Larders have so far opened across Glasgow in Nitshill, Kennishead, Cardonald, Linthouse, Sandyhills, and Toryglen and more are planned.
A survey of customers found that 35 per cent reported using a local food bank less after the signed-up as a community shop member, while 61 per cent said they were eating more fresh fruit and vegetables.
Chris Stephens, Good Food Scotland chair, said: "We have been determined to provide a service that is dignified and responsive to residents’ needs and circumstances.
"These figures suggest that we are becoming a sustainable and effective means of improving residents’ access to affordable nutritious goods, as well as wider support to address any underlying causes of hardship or difficulty in life.
"We appeal to anyone in our community who is able to support this ongoing work, which is making a demonstrable difference in our area, as well as to residents who might feel they can benefit from the Larders, to get in touch."
Andrew Forsey, national director of the Feeding Britain charity, which supports the network, said: "Community shops, such as larders, aim to provide dignity and choice for people who are struggling to put food on the table.
"These figures suggest that community shops are taking on an increasingly important role in helping people stretch their money further, while also delivering significant improvements to dietary intake and overall wellbeing.
"Following a decade of ever-longer queues for food banks and emergency food parcels, the figures also suggest that affordable food clubs can play a role in shortening those queues."
It comes as SNP MP Seamus Logan used a Westminster debate to highlight the rising number of people who are reliant on foodbanks.
Around three per cent of families in the UK - at least 2.1 million people - used a food bank in the year to March 2022, according to official figures.
Those in the north of England and Scotland were most likely to have used a food bank in the previous 12 months compared to the rest of the UK.
Logan said: "The soaring use of foodbanks across the UK is a damning indictment of failed Westminster policies including punitive welfare cuts, Brexit and economic mismanagement, which has squeezed household incomes and caused the cost of living to spiral out of control.
"I urge the UK government to bring forward an emergency package to tackle poverty and put money back in people's pockets. That must include reversing the cuts to the winter fuel payment, abolishing the two child benefit cap and bedroom tax, cutting energy bills with a social tariff, and ensuring benefits are always raised by at least the cost of living."
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