‘It’s empty for us to do here,’ says Ton Sleeking, chairman of the Food Bank Southeast Drenthe, while gesturing at the shelving unit that once overflowed with packages of pasta. Due to inflation and rising energy and gas prices, the number of people eligible for a food package is growing, so that volunteers in the depot in Emmen have to distribute the scarce goods among more and more customers.
It is not only in Emmen that the shelves are almost empty. Previously, food banks in the regions of Haaglanden, Zeeland, Utrecht and Brabant, among others, sounded the alarm, but how many of the 171 food banks in the Netherlands suffer from shortages is not recorded. All these food banks together help almost 100 thousand Dutch people. ‘The number of customers is increasing nationally, while the food supply is decreasing,’ says Tom Hillemans, vice-chairman of Food Banks Netherlands. ‘Our packages often consist of products that are approaching their best before date, from supermarkets and companies such as Unilever and Hak. But because they have been optimizing their purchasing processes in recent years to prevent waste, there is less and less food left for us.’
That is why the Provincial Council intervenes in Drenthe. On Wednesday, the parties unanimously approved a motion by the PvdA to donate 100 thousand euros to the Drenthe food banks. With that money, chairman Sleeking hopes to be able to purchase products more quickly that are needed at that time, so that the food bank is less dependent on erratic donations.
Shopping bags from the budget supermarket
Later in the day, the products from the depot in Emmen were spread out over distribution points in the city. In a protestant church in the post-war district of Emmerhout, retired volunteers hastily divide the food over more than fifty crates. ‘We can stack the crates today,’ says volunteer Bep. “That’s how empty they are.”
There are dozens of people waiting outside, all holding a shopping bag from a budget supermarket to have it filled inside. The atmosphere is left. Nobody likes to be there, but a woman who doesn’t want her name in the newspaper so as not to embarrass her three teenage daughters says she is grateful that the food bank exists. The number of families in line has almost doubled in six months.
‘If this continues, local food banks will soon have to make a choice,’ says Hillemans, the vice-chairman of Food Banks Netherlands. ‘Or a customer stop, or less food in the packages.’ In Emmerhout the time has come: visitors are already getting less than the intended five to six nutritious meals every two weeks. A 63-year-old man, his gray hair tied in a ponytail, was 80 euros short this month to pay his bills due to the high energy costs. ‘After four days, almost everything in the package was gone, so I ate leftover macaroni for ten days. I’ve tried everything, even macaroni soup.’
From roundabout crisis to debt crisis
‘We are now in a make-shift crisis’, says Arjan Vliegenthart, director of the Nibud (National Institute for Budget Information). ‘People are puzzling: how do I get through the month? I’m afraid it will soon turn into a debt crisis.’ The Income standards for eligibility for a food package have already been stretched recently, but according to Vliegenthart that is not enough. “It’s almost impossible to keep up with current inflation.”
The thought of rising prices makes people queuing at the food bank desperate. A 42-year-old woman has to keep her head above water on 16 euros a week, after she ended up on sick leave last year. She is distraught, she says. Her 18-year-old daughter who lives at home has to give up the money from her side job, the jeans she wears was given to her by her 22-year-old student son. Her green eyes are tired behind her glasses. “If you don’t have anything, you can’t give up any more.”
‘I take into account that inflation will rise even further in the coming months,’ says Hillemans. “We can do nothing but do our very best to get more donations, from companies or individuals who can miss something.”
Back at the food depot, the leftovers are packed for a young woman, who is exceptionally allowed to pick up an emergency kit without prior registration, after her daughter’s school called the food bank because something had to be done for the family now. The raspberry jam, eggs, pancake mix and other foodstuffs in the emergency food package are so welcome that the woman is full as soon as she sees the shopping bag. ‘Do you like cheese?’, warehouse manager Margareth asks comfortingly. “Then we’ll add that too.”
Fred de Jong (61), widower without children, former truck driver, now on welfare due to long-term illness.
‘I worked all my life, until I started working for an employment agency, broke my hip abroad and lost a lower leg and a pair of toes due to cardiovascular disease. I’ve been paying premiums for over thirty years, but I can’t be rejected. I live on a thousand euros of welfare. I pay a monthly health insurance premium of 170 euros and that personal contribution every year. Every two weeks I get a food package from the food bank. That’s not nearly enough, I’ll scrape up the rest.
‘I have just heard that from next year I will lose three hundred euros per month on gas and light. I have no idea how to pay for that. I always check at the end of the month which bills I have to pay. One time I don’t pay for the TV, the next month I leave the rent. I try to vary that a bit. The corporation can only evict you after three months of non-payment, did you know that? But you have to pay attention to your health insurance, they immediately impose a fine on you.
‘The time that I was awake from this situation is over. All I can do is laugh about it. It’s just ridiculous, but you can’t help it.’
Hendrik Levinga (39), single with four children, one of whom lives with him. He is in debt restructuring after the bankruptcy of his company and is training to be a truck driver.
‘For years I had my own company in earth, road and road construction, I managed 24 employees. In the beginning it went well, but then corona came. The assignments dried up, but I had to continue paying my employees. Then it gets really hard. I went bankrupt and became stressed. My farm had to go and I moved to a very small house. During that period I had to knock on my parents’ door for money. That is not nice. When my four kids came over on the weekend, I skipped a meal that week so I could buy them chippies.’
‘I’ve been getting a package from the food bank once every fortnight for a year now. The first time I stood in line I felt uncomfortable. I could always have saved myself, but now I was suddenly dependent. When the rent is written off, I have 275 euros left to get through the rest of the month. So turn every euro three times. I used to have 10 or 20 euros left over to do extra shopping in the Jumbo discount, but that is no longer possible now that everything is becoming more expensive. Last week I needed a new toothbrush and toothpaste. That was another 20 cents more expensive than last time. And that’s the case with everything. Hopefully it gets better soon. I am trying to complete a truck driver training; I have two more exams to pass. When the three years that I am still in debt restructuring are over, the sky will finally clear up.’