The Red Cross is to begin distributing food to British families for the first time since the Second World War, as thousands face cuts to their household budgets.
The British branch of the charity said it is about to launch a campaign in supermarket foyers asking shoppers to donate food which is then given to the most needy through the charity FareShare.
The hike in basic food prices and soaring utility bills has put a further squeeze on UK families, with more than five million people living in deep poverty.
Nearly 500,000 people in the UK needed support from food banks last year, according to figures from the Trussell Trust.
Juliet Mountford, head of UK service development, said the Red Cross agreed to assist FareShare on the basis of "strong evidence of an increased need for support on food poverty issues".
"For British Red Cross it's a toe in the water. It's the first step in considering whether we ought to be doing more on today's food poverty challenge."
Food banks across the country have been facing increasing levels of demand, with Birmingham's moving to bigger premises to cope.
Volunteers say since they opened two years ago the number of people needing them has trebled - with between 130 and 150 people requiring help every week.
Increasing numbers of Britons have been forced to use foodbanks For one single mother, who did not want to be identified, it was her first time here.
"My pride has gone, my confidence, self-esteem has gone, you feel like you're at the bottom of everything looking for a rope to climb up," she told Sky News.
"I had nothing in the fridge, my kids had to go to school just with a cup of tea."
Last month a report shed light on the chronic throw-away culture affecting the food industry, where up to two-fifths of a crop of fruit or vegetables can be wasted because it is "ugly".
Produce grown in the UK that does not meet retailer standards on size or shape or is blemished is often used for animal feed or simply ploughed back into the ground even though it is edible, with as much as 40% of a crop rejected.
The report, commissioned by the UK's global food security programme, also showed that the average household throws away more than 5kg (11lb) of food per week, and nearly two-thirds of that is avoidable.
The waste is equivalent to £480 a year per household on average, and £680 per family.
Households throw away a fifth of the food they buy, wasting it for reasons ranging from cooking and preparing too much to not using it before it goes off, the study showed.
Consumption and initial production are the areas where the majority of food is wasted in the UK, the study said.
The British Red Cross dates back to the 1870s, formed out of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement that began in Switzerland less than a decade earlier.
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