Survey of Food Banks Operating Independently of the Trussell Trust Food Bank Network, 2018-2019

Food banks – charitable projects providing free parcels of food for people in need to take away, prepare and eat - have existed in high-income countries for decades, but their spread in the UK is generally linked to the establishment and growth of The Trussell Trust’s member-based food bank network. Since 2011, The Trussell Trust has been publishing data on the volume of food bank use across their network, made available from their standardised data collection system. These data have almost exclusively been the source of information on food bank use for the UK and, in the absence of national food insecurity monitoring before 2016, have typically been used as a barometer for food insecurity. The Trussell Trust’s model for food banks is also well-established, involving establishing relationships with third-party local social and health service agencies who provide referrals; requiring that people in need of assistance have a referral for use; collecting data through the referral system; and guiding their member food banks to follow-up with referral agencies if they provide more than three referrals to a single client in a 6-month period. There is, however, increasing recognition of a much larger landscape of food parcel distribution through independent food banks not affiliated with The Trussell Trust. Research conducted by various researchers over 2014 to 2016 in England, Wales and Scotland found that in some places where no Trussell Trust food banks existed, there were well-established independent food banks operating. In other places, both Trussell Trust and independent food banks were operating. In 2017, Sabine Goodwin on behalf of the Independent Food Aid Network, identified over 500 food parcel distribution projects or food banks (for ease, referred to as food banks going forward) operating outside of The Trussell Trust’s food bank network. Although it has been evident that there are a large number of independent organisations and charities distributing food parcels, little has been known about when or why they were established, how they operate, and whom they serve. This lack of insight stands in contrast with research produced about, and from, The Trussell Trust, which includes numerous studies on the characteristics of people using their food banks and ways of operating, and qualitative studies of the user experience. To begin to fill these gaps, this survey of independent food banks was undertaken to build understanding of independent food parcel distribution projects operating outside of The Trussell Trust in England over 2018 to 2019. The aim of this research was to understand the role independent food banks have in responding to hunger and food poverty in the UK. The specific topics explored in this survey were: • Independent food banks' aims, services offered, and other activities engaged in both locally and nationally related to food poverty; • The operational characteristics of independent food banks including when they opened, how they are staffed, opening times, how data is collected, and how food parcels are made up. The potential factors that influence these, including funding, space availability, and influence of other organisations, were also explored. • Groups independent food banks serve and how people access their services; and • How independent food banks experience and respond to changes in demand, and opinions about how food bank usage could be reduced.

Nearly unheard of before 2010, in 2014/15 the UK's largest network of food banks, the Trussell Trust, distributed over one million food parcels, over sixteen-times the number distributed in 2010/11. In light of rising food bank use, the issue of hunger is at the forefront of domestic political debate in the UK. Have welfare reforms caused rising hunger or are people just taking advantage of newly available free food? Are people really struggling to afford enough food or is this a problem of lack of food skills? These debates have revealed the limited evidence on the scope and causes of insecure access to food in the UK, impeding development of appropriate policy and practice responses. This project was part of a wider study that explored food insecurity in the UK. The aims of this aspect of the project were to gather data on food banks operating independently of the Trussell Trust to understand when they started operating, their reasons for doing so, dynamics of their operations in relation to need, and the constraints on their services that might influence the numbers of people who receive food from them. Gathering this information provided critical information for understanding trends of rising food bank use since 2010.

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