Do food banks need to exist until we end hunger? We’d rather live in a Food Bank Free Britain

Within the voluntary sector, it’s widely accepted that food banks are not the solution to sky-rocketing levels of income inequality and chronic poverty.

We founded the Alliance for Dignified Food Support in 2022 to support food banks to embed dignity in their practice, and since then we’ve spoken with hundreds of people across the UK who work or volunteer at, or access emergency food aid.

The issues are well documented. Being reliant on emergency food parcels has a profound impact on someone’s sense of dignity and self worth. We call this impact ‘hunger trauma’. Teams of volunteers across the country are doing an incredible job, trying to ensure that nobody in their community goes hungry.

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But many food bank volunteers are burnt out and resent having to prop up a broken social security system. They are often not equipped to support people in acute crisis, and yet their roles go far beyond just handing out food and often include supporting people with complex safeguarding issues.

Similarly, there have long been calls to separate the redistribution of surplus food and poverty. Volunteers are fed up with having inedible produce dumped on them, and the idea that emergency food parcels contain items that would have otherwise gone to waste is a fallacy. Food banks spend an average of £2,000 a month on food, most of which is bought from a major supermarket, and we are seeing people begin to call out the fact that supermarkets profit from people’s hardship.

Emergency food aid is funded by local and national government, but there is no regulation, and the sector, which supports people in crisis, is staffed almost entirely by untrained volunteers. This is out of the question for any other public service. 

For those of us who have worked in this sector for years, it can feel like we’re banging our heads against a brick wall. We’ve been identifying and talking about these problems for years, yet very little ever seems to change. There’s a sense of inevitability: that as long as poverty exists, food banks are a necessary cog in the wheel. 

But do food banks need to exist until we end hunger? And is being fed the same as being properly nourished? What if millions of people turn to food banks for support, despite it feeling deeply shameful, because there’s nowhere else for them to go? What if feeling grateful to be given any food at all actually feels like an exceptionally low bar for a country as wealthy as the UK? 

Many of us believe that food banks are not inevitable; we can do things differently. Our new campaign calls on central and local governments to do things differently. Andy Burnham opened his premiership by saying that he would end rough sleeping. We’re asking him to make another ambitious pledge to create a Food Bank Free Britain. 

As an alliance, we believe that people in acute crisis should be supported by the relevant statutory services. If someone is disabled and unable to leave their home to get food – that’s a safeguarding issue that should be managed by adult social care. If someone is unable to buy enough food to feed their children, the duty of care should sit with children’s services, not a food bank. Instead, what we’re seeing is the systemic exploitation of the voluntary sector to fill gaps left by austerity.

Working Together for a Food Bank Free Britain calls on local councils to work with food partnerships and the voluntary sector to plan how they will create Food Bank Free Places. This could mean funding other, more dignified forms of support, like hardship grants for people in crisis and networked support services that build financial resilience.

Volunteers tell us that they want to continue to support their community, they just don’t want to feel responsible for whether or not someone is able to eat. Instead, they tell us that they want to run community projects that bring people together around food, like community kitchens and gardens. 

Our vision for the future is one in which poverty and hunger have been eradicated. In the meantime, we have a choice about how we respond. One thing is clear: we won’t get there by accident. If we think we need to wait until not a single person is at risk of hunger before we start to close our food banks, we’re going to be waiting a long time. In order to create a Food Bank Free Britain, we need to set the ambition and work strategically, together, to find out how we get there.

Find out more and learn how to join the movement here or follow @dignifiedfoodsupport on Instagram.

Stef Lake, Ronald Ranta and Carl Walker are co-founders of the Alliance for Dignified Food Support.

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

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