Rising cost of living: Soup kitchens still operating but bracing for impact

 

The rising cost of living has soup kitchen operators bracing for impact even as they try their best to maintain their operations to serve those in need.

Dapur Jalanan in Kuala Lumpur has managed to run its soup kitchen as usual for now, but founder Mohd Ezzuandi Ngadi said they are fully expecting the rising cost of living to affect their operations soon.

“So far, we are still operating as usual even though the cost of ingredients has increased quite a bit.

“It is expected that the cost will continue to rise so maybe we will try to look at a menu suitable for the current situation,” he said when contacted by Malaysiakini.

Similarly, Pertiwi Soup Kitchen founder Munirah Abdul Hamid told Malaysiakini they are still able to cope with the rising cost of living for now.

“We prioritise balanced meals,” she said.

Meanwhile, Kechara Soup Kitchen operations director Justin Cheah said they have been receiving fewer donations due to the rising cost of living, which made it harder for them to deliver food to their database of regular recipients.

If the donations they receive continue to dwindle, Cheah said they may have to resort to forking out their own money to provide food to their recipients.

“If we have to buy, then we would have lesser for somebody else because the price is higher now.

“That could be detrimental to our long-term projects,” he said.

While he understands why donations have slowed down, he appealed to those who are able to provide a helping hand to those in need.

“During these difficult times, the most affected is going to be the poor so I hope many would come forward to lend a helping hand if you have any extra.

“We want to continue giving but... we need people to continue contributing so that we have enough to provide because there are many out there who are actually suffering at this moment,” he said.

Maintaining sponsorship

For Pit Stop Community Cafe, co-founder Joycelyn Lee said they had managed to maintain their food sponsorship at RM10 per pack of food for a long time, but recently had to increase it to RM12 per pack.

“For now, we have had to increase our sponsorship. We will not compromise on our food quality. Our street clients have little enough nutrition as it is.

“Not to say we haven’t had challenges - packing costs have increased as well. We do try and minimise our use of plastic but much of it is unavoidable because of health and safety issues,” Lee said.

She explained that they have been tracking the prices of food items since before the Covid-19 pandemic and they have noticed the prices of eggs, chicken and vegetables increase significantly over the last several months.

However, they will maintain the contents of their meal packs for what Lee described as their “street clients”.

For now, Lee said their meal packs will continue to have one pack of carbohydrates, protein and vegetables, one bottle of water, one hard-boiled egg and either biscuits, a sandwich or a piece of fruit.

“But we are trying to keep (the sponsorship fees) as low as possible while covering our costs.

“This is so that people who would otherwise not be able to pay it forward can still do so,” she said.

It was previously reported that the Consumer Price Index had increased 2.3 percent in April 2022, rising to 125.9 percent compared with 123.1 percent in the same month of the preceding year.

The Department of Statistics Malaysia had said this increase surpassed the average inflation in Malaysia for the period of January 2011 to April 2022, which was 1.9 percent.

Food inflation last April was also reported to be higher at 4.1 percent, which 89.1 percent of food items recording increases. - Mkini