Vulnerable households are turning down food bank support because they cannot afford to cook the food provided.
Some families are turning down potatoes and root vegetables because they cannot afford to boil them due to skyrocketing energy costs, the managing director of supermarket chain Iceland has claimed.
Richard Walker made the comment ahead of Rishi Sunak’s Spring Statement today in which he urged the Chancellor to deliver emergency support to cash-strapped households.
“I think the cost-of-living crisis is the single most important domestic issue that we’re facing as a country and it is incredibly concerning,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
“You know, we’re hearing about some food bank users declining potatoes and root veg because they can’t afford the energy to boil them.”
Mr Walker said the frozen food chain, which has about 1,000 stores in the UK, was doing “everything we can” to protect customers from rises in its own costs.
He added that Iceland stores were “in the poorest communities around the UK, so our customers are depending on us for that value”.
But he said businesses were not “an endless sponge that can soak it all up” and suggested energy price caps for customers could be extended to businesses.
Mr Walker said prices had increased in the supply chain, with shortages of workers and higher transportation costs to blame. Meanwhile, shortages of fertiliser from Russia and sunflower oil from Ukraine were also factors.
“And then finally we have operational cost pressures as well in the running of our shops,” he said.
“National Minimum Wage will increase our cost base by 20 million quid. We have green taxation of £16 million next year, and we have, of course, electricity bills which are going to rise many times over, and that will disproportionately affect bricks and mortar retailers, such as ourselves.”
Inflation reached 6.2 per cent in February, the Office for National Statistics said on Wednesday, the highest inflation reading since March 1992.
Mr Sunak is under intense pressure to help alleviate the strain of rising living costs on UK households when he delivers his statement to the Commons this afternoon.
According to speculation, the Chancellor could cut fuel duty by 5p, raise benefits in line with inflation or raise the threshold for national insurance contributions in line with income tax. That would mean the lowest earners would be exempt from the tax rise.
