Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Moray food bank experiencing one of their busiest ever years

Gilliam Pirie, Volunteer Development Officer at Moray Foodban
Gilliam Pirie, Volunteer Development Officer at Moray Foodban

A Moray food bank has been forced to close one of its bases – to pool its resources to meet growing demand.

The region’s only food bank is experiencing its busiest ever year, with families struggling to cope with the roll-out of Universal Credit.

Now the team has decided to close its storehouse in Keith to enable them to cope with the influx of referrals from their headquarters in Elgin.

The storehouse managed all the referrals for the town, but stock levels have depleted so much that the team decided to consolidate it all in one place.

Chairwoman Kathy Ross stressed the move does not mean families in the Keith area will now have to travel to Elgin to receive their food parcels.


>> Keep up to date with the latest news with The P&J newsletter


She said: “Our food bank service will continue to run in Keith exactly as it does across the rest of Moray.

“Requests for food parcels received before noon are processed and packed by our team of dedicated volunteers, and volunteer drivers deliver to drop off points in every part of Moray.

“We can assure everyone that people have never had to travel to the Elgin food store, and that we have always delivered right across Moray.”

And with Christmas fast approaching, volunteers are appealing for donations of basic items such as cereal, UHT milk, and tinned goods.

Moray Foodbank in Elgin.

Gillian Pirie, volunteer development officer at Moray Foodbank, said: “This time last year I started out as a volunteer and I have personally seen the difference in that time – from the rise in food referrals to the low levels of stock due to the high demand.

“The reasons for the increase in demand lately has mainly been the roll out of Universal Credit, with payments taking up to five weeks, possibly more, depending on circumstances. People are finding it hard to spread their money out and pay bills as well as put food on the table.

“We find the demands on food banks increase at Christmas due to children being at home in the holidays increasing the family food bills. The roll out of UC around this time will mean some payments for UC won’t be paid till after Christmas.”

To donate, or to volunteer with Moray Foodbank, visit the website or pop into the Elgin High Street.

Helping those in need

Moray Foodbank has helped feed more people so far this year than throughout the whole of last year, supplying 2,875 people in 2018 compared to 2,759 last year.

Many of those are repeat customers, as the figures show a drop in the number of referrals from 1,929 last year to 1,428 this year.

The introduction of community larders in various localities throughout the region has also helped with the reduction of referrals.

Overall, food bank use in Moray increased by almost 20% in the last year while statistics for the whole of Scotland also experienced a stark rise with numbers increasing by 15%.

Those figures were supplied by the Trussell Trust, who run a network of over 420 food banks across the UK.

Food bank providers blamed government cuts for the rise, claiming the increase is largely due to the in-built minimum wait of five weeks for a first payment for those put on Universal Credit – with many more people forced to wait even longer than five weeks.

More than three quarters of respondents in a survey, run by Unite the Union, of over 1,000 Universal Credit claimants said that they had been put into debt, or pushed further into debt by UC with some forced to use food banks to survive as well as borrowing from friends and family.