More than 960 panels support two million needy people across Germany. The need increases. At the same time, there are fewer staff and food. Recording stops are no longer the exception in many places.
Fighting food waste: The first food banks were founded in Germany for this purpose. At the beginning, everyone could pick up saved food at the distribution points.
That changed with the Hartz reforms in the early 2000s. Due to the greater social hardship, the distribution of food was limited to the needy. From then on, more and more panels were established. Today the panels have more of a welfare character.
With environmental protection in mind, Uwe Bussmann co-founded the Tafel in Saarbrücken 25 years ago. The 74-year-old was the first chairman for more than ten years. He resigned from this post in mid-August.
Resources are becoming scarce
The Saarbrücker Tafel alone supplies around 900 households. Most of those who come here are refugees from Ukraine and the Middle East, recipients of citizenship benefits, elderly people in poverty in old age and low-income workers.
More than 200 other households are still on the waiting list, because the board had to impose another freeze on admissions since May – until the end of the year. “The need is greater than we can afford,” says Bussmann. Fewer and fewer helpers would have to provide more and more people in need with less and less food. At the moment, the only way to get in is if another household vacates their space – for example, if someone moves away, dies or says they are no longer in need.
In the last 25 years, little has happened in the social sector, says Bußmann. The politicians are too busy with themselves and fail to help, criticizes the former chairman of the board. “Poor people are no longer able to provide for themselves sufficiently and are not sufficiently equipped.” The fact that the panels exist at all is a failure of politics.
In his opinion, the mentality of those receiving care has also changed. While seniors in particular are ashamed of having to rely on the food bank because their pension is too low, the concept of serving food is becoming more and more commonplace for younger generations – and is associated with a kind of demands. “Many think they’re entitled to it,” said Bussmann.
Overwhelmed volunteer work
Since the Saarbrücker Tafel has existed, the 74-year-old has always hoped that one day it would no longer be needed. As with the very first Tafel in Berlin, he originally wanted to combat food waste. Today he demands that every employee receives enough wages to be able to provide for themselves.
At the federal level, the situation of the panels looks similarly tense. The corona pandemic had already led to high levels of stress, says the chairman of Tafel Deutschland, Andreas Steppuhn. The high cost of living and inflation since the start of the Ukraine war has meant that the food banks are feeding more people than ever before.
More than every third Tafel in Germany states that they have introduced admission freezes. More than half hand out less groceries to individual customers. On top of that comes the heavy workload for the volunteers. In addition to the physical strain – as more and more boxes are being carried – the helpers are now also mentally affected by the work.
“Rejecting people in need is not easy for anyone,” explains the association’s chairman. That overwhelms volunteer work, which many also do for the joy of helping.
Steppuhn also sees a failure in administration and politics: “It can’t be that the authorities meanwhile refer people affected by poverty to the blackboards.” The chairman of the federal association welcomes measures such as the increase in citizen income to 563 euros and the planned basic child security. But that’s not enough to get poverty in Germany under control in the long term.