NEARLY half of a food bank's users last year had never accessed a food bank before.
Hexham-based charity West Northumberland Food Bank, which has been operational for 11 years, provides emergency food and other essential supplies to people in hardship and also signposts users to other services.
Project manager Sam Gilchrist said: "Every single food bank in the country, including us, has had an increase in demand year-on-year. Every year we help more people than we did the year before."
She said last year was the charity's busiest year to date and 47 per cent of people who contacted them had never had to turn to a food bank before.
There were 338 new households appealing for help, which included 458 adults and 270 children.
It supported almost 1,000 adults and more than 580 children in 720 homes in total.
READ MORE: The number of children in Hexham growing up in poverty
20 per cent of the food bank's users were in employment but were struggling to afford basic supplies.
The Trussell Trust, which operates a network of food banks across the country, raised concerns over the number of food parcels handed out in Northumberland.
The charity handed out 3,524 food parcels in Northumberland between April 1 2023 and March 31 2024. This compared to just 963 in 2019/20 – representing an increase of 265.94 per cent.
The Government insisted that fewer people are now in 'absolute poverty' than they were in 2010.
READ MORE: Concerns as food parcel numbers rise in county
Suzanne Fairless-Aitken, town councillor for Hexham East, said: "There is a clear link between food poverty and government policy. Food banks are the shame of our age. Working families should not need to use them at all.
"Unfortunately, the ABCs - Austerity, Brexit, cost-of-living crisis - have all added to the misery of balancing budgets with low wages in a struggling economy. Despite media protestations that things are improving for the economy, in real terms they are not.
"Last year, No.28 Community House in Hexham East ran an amazing programme of hot food on Tuesday and Thursday and the amazing volunteers at the Food Bank and Community Grocery are seeing staggering rises in users of all ages and demographics.
"As has been recently highlighted, there are now more food banks offering free parcels of food than McDonald's franchises in our country. That is just shocking."
The Government announced in early February that eight million households were to receive £2 billion in cost-of-living support.
Mel Stride, secretary of State for Work and Pensions, said: "The economy has turned a corner, and with inflation falling we are providing millions of the most vulnerable households with another significant cash boost."
The Community Grocery in Hexham's East End is located near the old middle school site.
Dale Dawson is the manager of the store. He explained the store, which also offers hygiene products and pet food, runs a membership scheme and people pay £5 for a shop.
He estimated members get approximately £30 worth of food for £5.
"We've seen an uptake in membership so there's been more people coming along. Probably every day we have new members and we've seen some uptake in the support we give people. We offer counselling, job support and cookery courses.
"I think the cost of living has gone up substantially and people are shopping more shrewdly, trying to make their money go as far as they can, so they shop at the Community Grocery because they get good value for food.
"We're seeing a diverse group of people across the spectrum of ages and demographics, including people who have really good jobs and those who aren't working at all. We're busy and we're getting busier," he added.
Dale encouraged anyone to visit the Community Grocery to find out more or become a member, which he said is 'straightforward' and costs £5 to sign up.
"It's not means-tested at all, we have a huge range of people who use the shop. We're available for anybody and everybody, that's what we're all about."
Contact West Northumberland Food Bank at getintouch@westnorthumberlandfoodbank.org.uk or the Community Grocery at hello@communitygrocery.org.uk.
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