One in four working parents in London are skipping meals to feed their kids

One in four working parents in London are struggling to feed their families due to the cost-of-living crisis, new figures have shown.

Food charity, The Felix Project, has surveyed more than 2,000 working parents in the capital, with a quarter saying they skipped meals or didn’t buy food for themselves so their children could eat.

Research also suggests 11% of London’s working families have less than £3 a day to spend on food.

It comes as inflation rates have hit an all-time high in recent months and millions of families are struggling across the UK due to an increased cost of living.

The charity said 14% of respondents have turned to a food support service like a foodbank for the first time in the last year.

Families have told how food-sharing apps have helped during these tough times, and it is one of the reasons why earlier this year Metro.co.uk launched its Formula for Change campaign series in partnership with charity Feed.

We are calling on the government to urgently review their infant formula legislation and give retailers the green light to accept loyalty points, all food bank vouchers and store gift cards as payment for infant formula.

Mum-of-two, Wendy Lam-Vechi, told the BBC she’d started collecting food past its best-before date when the family’s mortgage and living costs increased.

Ms Lam-Vechi, from Greenwich in south-east London, is now using a food-sharing app in order to feed her family.

She said she regularly walks one or two hours across the city to collect leftover food.

She said: ‘‘We never used to spend that much, milk used to be a pound and now it’s gone up… so we started cutting back on luxuries like cheese, yoghurt, and no more crisps.

‘It got to the point where I said, ‘this isn’t right, we shouldn’t be struggling so much just feeding our family,’

After doing research online Ms Lam-Vechi said she came across food-sharing app Olio.

She found someone giving away three large loaves of bread and thought ‘wow, I can actually make something – I made bread and butter pudding, I ended up making sandwiches for lunch’.

Shane Dorsett, director of operations at the Felix Project, says many people would be ‘very surprised’ at the kinds of people struggling.

@metrouk

In today’s cost of living crisis being able to feed your family has tragically become part of our everyday conversation. And something that hasn’t made it easier is the skyrocketing price of baby formula. The thing is, current government rules stop retailers from allowing shoppers to pay for formula via cash-equivalent methods like Nectar, Tesco Clubcard or Boots loyalty points – or even store gift cards! It’s a situation no parent should ever find themself in, which is why Metro.co.uk is launching the much-needed Formula for Change campaign in partnership with the family support charity Feed. We are calling on the government to urgently review their infant formula legislation and give retailers the green light to accept loyalty points, all food bank vouchers and store gift cards as payment for infant formula. This isn’t about whether breast or formula fed is best – this is simply about making sure babies don’t starve. Here, Ashley James throws her support behind the campaign. #FormulaForChange #Family #babytok #costofliving #babyformula #campaign #politics

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‘People who have never used food service organisations before are these days showing up.

‘People who go to work every day, sometimes they have more than one job, are now using food banks,’ he said.

The Felix Project’s CEO, Charlotte Hill OBE, said there is ‘a huge demand for food support services’, which emphasises ‘the dire need among working families’.

She said: ‘Every single one of the charities we support wants more food and there are over 650 new organisations on our waiting list that we cannot help.’

Ms Lam-Vechi said she is trying to spread the word about food-sharing apps, but feels ‘quite sad there’s not enough help out there’.

She said: ‘I want people to know you don’t have to go through this struggle of feeding your family when there are other means of doing it.’

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