It is primarily single mothers with several children who need help, while the proportion of addicts and social exclusions has decreased among the City Mission's members of the food team.
"We are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of families with children who are struggling to make ends meet. A year ago, we had about 30 families with children a week who received a bag of groceries. Now we have 100 families who need our help," says Carina Helmisdotter, operations manager for Matlaget at the City Mission.
No traditional "bread queue"
The City Mission in Eskilstuna does not have a traditional "bread queue", but distributes food bags to families and single people, who, after a check of the finances, are allowed to be members of the food team for a year. A membership that means that they get one bag of groceries per week for free.
Can't help everyone who needs support
Inflation has also meant that the City Mission receives a smaller amount of food from stores than before and therefore cannot help everyone who needs support.
"Stores have become better at finding out about waste, such as products with short best-before dates, which are now more often sold at reduced prices, which means that we periodically receive less money," says Carina Helmisdotter.