A lifeline in Norwich which gives food to those in need has been handed a £2,000 boost from a finance firm.

The Norwich foodbank was given a £2,000 food shop from Foresters Financial, as well as a team of volunteers to help sort through donations.

It came as part of the company's Community Grant Programme.

John McGrath, satellite leader for the company, organised the shop using the foodbank's 'most needed' items list, with it being delivered last month.

It included more that one tonne's worth of items, including cereal bars, chocolate, tinned meat and fruit juice.

A team of 10 people arrived at the warehouse in Earlham to unpack, date, sort and put away the items ready to be packed into parcels by foodbank volunteers in the coming months.

Mr McGrath said: 'When times get tough people rely on the support of Norwich foodbank. Foresters Financial and their Members were pleased to support this local charity with a donation of food and time.'

Hannah Worsley, Norwich foodbank project manager, said: 'The support of Foresters Financial has come at a great time of year, as the summer months are typically our quietest time of year for donations and some stock items have been very low.

'We were extremely grateful to specify the items we needed and it was great to see the crates filling up with tinned tomatoes and sponge puddings.'

In the six months leading up to the end of June, Norwich foodbank gave out more than 4,000 parcels, which included support for just over 1,300 children.

In April, the charity revealed it had given out almost 10,000 emergency food parcels to people in Norwich in the previous 12 months.

Of those, more than 3,000 went to children, and the figure came as a rise of 575 on the previous year.

They said almost half the referrals throughout the year - 44pc - related to benefit delays or changes.

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