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A local food charity is celebrating a decade of tackling food poverty and promoting healthy eating habits in Jersey through educational and community initiatives.
Yvonne Corbin, CEO of Caring Cooks, sat down with Express to look back on ten years of challenges and triumphs.
But despite all this good work, Mrs Corbin said use of the charity's food bank had now reached unprecedented levels due to the ongoing impact of the pandemic, the cost-of-living crisis and increases in food costs.
“We’ve never had this much demand for food services,” she explained on the latest episode of Bailiwick Podcasts.
“There is an ongoing demand. I can’t see that it’s going to get any better," Mrs Corbin said.
“There is a huge need in Jersey, even though when you come into the island you see the nice private jet and the yachts."
Pictured: Yvonne Corbin is the CEO of local food charity Caring Cooks.
Mrs Corbin, who joined the charity as an ambassador in 2020 before becoming CEO, was driven by personal experience with food insecurity.
Children’s access to nutritious meals has been hampered as the cost of living has dramatically increased, she explained, with some children regularly missing hot meals.
Parents might lack education about healthy eating and nutrition, or they might not have enough time or money to prepare nutritionally balanced meals, which Mrs Corbin said leads to a reliance on less nutritious food options, potentially having lasting effects on a child’s health and development.
“It’s not just a certain group, it’s not just the lower socio-economic group,” she said. “It’s affecting families across the island.
“As soon as we kind of got over that Covid hump, it was the cost-of-living emergency, we had the war in Ukraine and food prices were increasing.
"It just became impossible. We saw it with our charity when trying to navigate costs and suppliers."
The Caring Cooks CEO added: “We could also see our waiting list getting longer for our weekly meal service.
"And we do get a lot of feedback from people saying we’ve never seen anything like this before.
"We’ve never had this much demand for food services."
LISTEN...
Express spoke with Yvonne Corbin about her charity's journey over the last decade as it celebrates its 10th anniversary.
The Caring Cooks CEO outlined the widespread issue of food insecurity, and how families are turning to cheaper and processed foods amid what she describes as a "cost of living emergency".
Listen to the interview below or search 'Bailiwick Podcasts' on your favourite podcast provider.
You can also read a fuller interview with Mrs Corbin in Saturday's JEP...
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