Ms. Werth, you founded the Tafel to save food and thus help poor people.

Recently, many food banks have sounded the alarm - they complain that there are too few food donations for too much demand.

How is the situation right now?

Anna Lena Ripperger

Editor in Politics.

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For us it is the most difficult situation we have ever experienced, really an exceptional situation.

Nationwide, the 963 Tafel locations now have well over two million customers, up from 1.6 million last year.

Some of the Berliner Tafel dispensaries have increases of one hundred percent: Where there used to be a hundred households, there are now two hundred.

Many other boards feel the same way.

Why has the demand grown so much?

We have the Corona situation that we are still stuck in.

We also have the war in Ukraine and we have inflation.

Those are three huge challenges that we have to deal with.

At the same time, all food banks in Germany have been getting less food for months.

That's actually surprising, because inflation could lead to the assumption that less is being sold.

But the shops have adjusted to it and have not ordered that much.

Then there are still a lot of people with purchasing power who continue to shop diligently.

And many companies drive their surpluses directly to the Ukraine, they don't even end up here with us.

So we get less goods overall, but have an enormous influx of people.

Which new customers have you gained in the past few months?

On the one hand, there are refugees from Ukraine and, on the other hand, people who have gotten into financial difficulties due to Corona, who have lost their jobs and had to give up their companies - actually the classic middle class.

These people now say: I never thought that I would have to go to the blackboard, but I can't help it anymore.

My reserves are exhausted.

How does the food bank work?

There are Tafel principles that everyone works by, such as need testing.

But on site, the output looks very different.

Some Tafel in the south have Tafel shops, which are then open six times a week and some customers can also come several times a week.

In Berlin, we have issuing offices that are assigned based on postal codes.

We only give people groceries once a week.

Are they enough for several days?

That would be nice, and we're happy to give away whatever we have.

But the essential point is: Nobody has the right to go to the food bank and get food by hook or by crook, which should then keep for a whole week if possible.

Otherwise we would give the state free rein to cut the food subsidies for Hartz IV or the planned citizen's income.

We are not the cleaners of politics.

The state is responsible for taking care of the people.

We set out to save food and use this saved food to support people in need.