‘People are desperate’: Kent food bank and families hit hard by inflation

Keeping the shelves stocked at the food bank in Canterbury. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

With its colourful beach huts and quaint high street, Whitstable is a tourist mecca in the school holidays. But the pile of shopping bags in the Canterbury and District food bank tells a different story about real life in the picturesque Kent seaside town.

The nearly 200 bags, with extra treats such as leftover chocolate advent calendars poking out, are ready to hand out at 22 local schools before half-term as, amid a worsening cost of living crisis, they know some children might go hungry without school dinners.