The woman behind the Okehampton Community Kitchen said this week she was ‘in tears’ as the food service comes under strain due to the cost of living crisis.

Rebecca Green, proprietor of the cafe 3 East Street and Community Kitchen said that she ‘does not know how to feed everyone’ as an increasing number of Okehampton residents begin to struggle putting food on the table and turn towards the community kitchen for help.

Mrs Green said: ‘We’ve got a crisis. People are starting to realise they don’t earn enough for stuff they are in need of and need to choose between paying bills or eating.

‘Sometimes people are choosing to pay for that school trip so their child isn’t humiliated instead of spending it on food. It’s only going to get worse.

‘People don’t expect this problem in Okehampton. Some people have asked whether we even need one because they don’t expect such a problem in the town.’

The fears come following concerns over the future of the Country Style Foods factory in Okehampton where several people are being made redundant.

Mrs Green said she had seen an influx in the numbers of people visiting the community kitchen since news of the redundancies had come out.

‘Workers are coming in saying that they are going to be made redundant and need help until the Universal Credit comes through,’ she said.

‘But, we’re not going to see a big increase until maybe July because that’s when their redundancy payment ends.’

Working alongside Okehampton’s foodbank, the community kitchen already provides a lifeline to those otherwise unable to cook whether that is due to a disability or other condition.

Mrs Green said: ‘We provide a slightly different service to the foodbank because we can provide cooked meals to those who can’t cook due to a disability or other difficult and more and more people are struggling to get cover for care workers.

‘The foodbank is only open once a week on a Friday but we’re open more frequently so they provide us with food parcels that we can give out.’

The community interest group is now stepping up to deal with the increased number of struggling families and newly unemployed.

Most recently, the community kitchen announced that it had seen a rise in the number of homemade meals being sent out and called out for more help as its workload increases.

Mrs Green explained that people could provide help in a variety of ways from one-off donations to contacting companies that may have surplus food.