A Bury food bank has been hit by a national shortage of fruit and vegetables, leading to vulnerable people being affected.

Charity network Fare Share provides food to charities and food banks in Bury, and across the country.

But vice chairman at Brandlesholme Community Centre and Foodbank, Beth McCrimmon, said the organisation "can’t get hold of fruit and veg via Fare Share".

A rise in costs amid inflation comes at a time when the supply chain of fresh fruit and veg, such as the colder than expected weather in Spain and north Africa, has hampered the problem with supermarkets bringing in restrictions on how many items customer can buy.

Factors surrounding Brexit have played a part too.

Fare Share membership and information coordinator in Greater Manchester, Ben Warner, said: “We do often see a drop around this time in general in our sort of supplies, we do see donations decrease.

"It has been a pronounced decrease in the fruit and veg surplus in the past few weeks."

Mr Warner added the negative impact that the shortage is having on the community.

He said: “The knock-on effect of people who are accessing those frontline services not being able to access that food especially those who are vulnerable and possibly don’t have access to healthy food to lose that outlet then is really difficult and has the impact of worsening people’s health at a time when people are struggling.

“This is for a number of reasons, partially because the supermarkets, where they get their produce from becoming more expensive to supply to the supermarkets who donate substantial amounts for us that’s having a knock-on effect, and we are seeing fewer donations come in unfortunately.

"It has become quite difficult to continue to supply the charities we work with because we do have less of that healthy nutritional food that we want to offer."

Despite the issues that food banks and supermarkets face nationwide in accessing fresh fruit and veg, Mr Warner said he was confident that supply chains would return to normal within a few weeks.