PEOPLE are being urged to donate to their local foodbank as soaring energy and food prices combine with the pressures of Christmas to fuel higher demand.

Edinburgh Food Project chief executive Laura van der Hoeven said her organisation expects to have distributed as many as 2,000 food parcels across the city between the beginning of December and Christmas alone.

According to food bank charity the Trussell Trust, the number of emergency food parcels distributed in Scotland has doubled over the last decade, reaching 239,000 between April last year and this year.

And over the past year, Edinburgh Food Project alone has handed out 20,000 food parcels to 6,000 households across the city.

Pointing out the even greater difficulties faced by those in financial hardship at this time of the year, Ms van der Hoeven said: “In the winter, with higher heating bills, higher energy bills, we see more demand for emergency food and, obviously, there’s a lot of pressure on people at Christmas financially.

“We live in the society that we live in. There’s huge expectation, particularly for families with children to maybe make sacrifices elsewhere to make sure that they can have a magical Christmas for their kids.”

Urging people to donate whatever they can to a foodbank to meet growing demand, she added: “Christmas is always a really busy time for us and in the run-up to Christmas, we are always actually overwhelmed by the generosity of the community, both the businesses that support us and the people who donate food to us.

“We would really encourage people to please keep donating to us throughout the winter, because the winter is a really tough time for a lot of people.”