SUGAR and fruit squash is in particularly short supply at Swindon Foodbank.

Bob Hayward, the chairman of trustees of the Swindon Foodbank, run by Swindon Christian Community Projects, issued a call this week for more donations of small packets of sugar and fruit squash for its emergency packages.

Mr Hayward said: “We’re ok on most things – what we’re particularly short of is very small 500kg bags of sugar and 1 litre bottles of fruit squash, so we’re particular keen on people donating them over the next week to help rebuild the stocks because there is still very high demand unfortunately.

“There hasn’t been a massive increase, but demand is still increasing; we’re gradually seeing more and more people – that’s a constant."

Mr Hayward explained the difficulties of making sure food can be easily divided and shared between the people who come to the charity for temporary support.

He said: “Each food package we’re putting together is only meant to last three days.

“We’re only a sticking plaster until a benefit gets sorted out or a large bill that comes in and people can’t cope. We’re only giving them three days emergency food. And there’s no way you’re going to use 500g of sugar in three days. So the smallest bag of sugar is more than enough to fill that emergency gap until things get sorted out.

“People feel that they’re being mean because they’re only buying 500g, but we have to split 2kgs bag because we’re only putting small amounts of food in the various packages that we put together.

“To make the individual quantity contributions that we need for a single person, a couple or a small family, we would need the smaller packages.

“We’re still supporting a significant number of people and we want to be sure that we’re giving them the complete, nutritious and balanced meals that we’re supposed to.”

Mr Hayward also praised people who already donate food to the charity, as well as the volunteers staffing the foodbank centres.

“People in Swindon are very very generous with their food – we’re not short of food in general - we don’t want to give the wrong impression.

“We get too much dried pasta," he said. "People think it’s very nutritious which it is, but we’ve got plenty of pasta, we’ve got plenty of baked beans and plenty of tinned fruit.

“There are some things that people don’t always think to get for us which are quite crucial.”

Swindon Foodbank runs seven centres in Swindon, including the St Aldhelms centre on Edgeware Road, and has permanent donation points by the checkouts in all the main supermarkets.

“People can literally buy their shop as normal, and once you’ve paid for everything there is a permanent donation point behind the tills usually on the way out," he said.

The charity also welcomes financial support which can be made through the online donation page on its website - swindon.foodbank.org.uk. To contact them, call (01793) 686510.