Six days a week, Robert Hedron and a fleet of other drivers do the rounds of Berlin's supermarkets, picking up what's left over; that’s all brought back to a central sorting office and the good stuffs kept.

"There are loads of discounters they cannot sell these any more, just because one bad doesn't mean they are all bad." And each month, almost 700,000 kgs of groceries are distributed to social service facilities across the city for those in need.

Salad, biscuits, sausages, bread, a few vegetables, this woman shows me what she's picked up. "This definitely helps as my pension is not big, " she says.

It's not just pensionless and people on social security who come here. Though this country's unemployment rate fell to a record low for the month, according to the national poverty conference which published its annual report the day we visited the center, 1 in 4 Germans live in the low wage sector, the so-called working poor.

Like Thomas Weers who says he earns less in a full time job than he would on benefits.

"Everyone says isn't it great, you just have 2, 2.5 million jobless. But if you are only getting paid 7 euros an hour, it doesn't add up."

Germany prides itself on its social welfare system which is one of the most generous in Europe, which is why you won't find a people here, for example, who won't be able to feed their families this Christmas. But as the country's demographic changes, as the population ages, if Europe fails to become more competitive, then this social welfare model may become one of the things in the past.

Liliana Pfundt tells me she wishes Germany has kept the Deutch Mark.

We are taxed to high heaven now. That money they sent to Greece they should keep to build Germany up.

She feels her 40 years’ hard work aren't reflected in the pensions she receives. But here at Christmas, she is happy that at least she doesn't have to go without.