‘Every day is doomsday’: how a food bank is struggling to keep up

Not only is demand even greater than it was year ago, but rampant inflation means the pound is buying less

The shelves should be chock-a-block with baked beans, soup and tuna but it looks as if someone has played Supermarket Sweep and Angela Gardiner admits she has never seen supplies at the food bank so depleted.

I have never seen it like this," Gardiner says, pointing to yawning gaps on the blue racks filling the unit at the Canterbury food bank, where she is operations director. This is normally full of beans, but we are short of tinned stuff."