Originally Posted by alan29:
“What you see on TV are the warehouses where stuff gets sent to. It is then put into parcels of different sizes for the clients. The people going round the shelves picking stuff are the volunteers making up the parcels which are then sent to distribution point where the clients get sent. Clients don't go to the warehouses and self-serve. They don't do fresh food, only tins and packets etc with a long shelf life.”
No, I've seen those too Alan and i'm not talking about them. The ones i'm referring to are definitely not warehouses, they're held in much smaller places such as community centres, where the volunteers stack the shelves with donations of food sent
from the bigger warehouses, local shops etc. They're small, independent set-ups, serving the local community. I think the most recent example I've seen was a couple of weeks ago in a BBC documentary called 'Sister Rita To The Rescue', which was based in or near Manchester, iirc. They definitely have fresh veg available at the ones I've seen, as I remember seeing a volunteer bagging up rations of about half a dozen spuds into small bags from a massive sack.
I think there are two types of food banks - the bigger ones you're speaking of and the small, independent ones serving just their local community. There shouldn't be any need for any of them though imo.