Yes, food banks. They are a blight on society and run counter to the principles of an egalitarian, democratic nation.
I write from a position of relative privilege. I belong to a middle-class food bubble that celebrates cooking with ingredients bought at Waitrose or speciality stores, and I share those pleasures on Twitter. I have not needed a food bank personally, though my mother once assumed my student status and part-time work meant I must be eligible, bless her.
Despite that, I volunteer at a food bank. That experience has taught me a great deal and left me incredulous about how British society has come to rely on these makeshift outposts for basic survival.
Some context: food banks have a longer history in the United States, where they have operated for about thirty years. In the UK they have grown rapidly over the last fifteen years. Around 2000 there was a single food bank in the UK; now there may be more than 2,000, although no central database tracks every one. Organisations such as the Trussell Trust collect data on their own network, but membership carries a cost that some independent food banks, including the one I volunteer at, cannot afford. The US example shows a worrying truth: food banks do not solve the underlying problems.
Once established, they become permanent. The rise in numbers and usage—recent figures cite nearly two million food parcels distributed each year—prompts questions. One simple reason for growth is availability: if you are short of cash, facing a crisis, or constrained by inadequate welfare, a food bank can provide immediate sustenance for a few days. Who could begrudge that short-term help?
But food banks function primarily as emergency aid. They resemble humanitarian shipments sent into a famine zone: necessary in a crisis, but not a route to long-term dignity or independence. True charitable action should aim to empower recipients, offering engagement, agency and pathways away from dependency. Instead, many users feel shame and stigma when they visit a food bank; some people who qualify refuse to use one because of pride or embarrassment.
Criticism often targets the simple, non-perishable hampers sometimes derided as “kettle bags” — parcels designed to be cooked with nothing more than a kettle. There is a practical reason for this: many food banks open only once a week and cannot predict how many people will arrive. Perishable items are hard to manage without risking waste, so long-life, dried and tinned goods become the default.
Linking surplus food and food banks is both possible and valuable. Organisations such as FareShare redistribute edible surplus from the food and drink industry to charities and community projects. Yet it remains troubling that a system designed to feed vulnerable people often relies on the leftovers of abundance. Relying on charity and surplus rather than addressing structural causes lets everyone pretend the bigger issues don’t exist.
Food banks are typically staffed by volunteers and operate with minimal funding. They must serve an immensely diverse population: refugees, people experiencing homelessness, families, pensioners, single parents, ex-offenders and more. Each group has different needs. A Bangladeshi mother with a strong family food culture will need very different ingredients from a homeless person without a can opener, or a young man in a halfway house who has never learned how to cook. With limited resources, donations and good intentions, food banks often have to standardise what they provide, helping those with the fewest resources but failing to meet the full range of individual needs.
Official recognition is complicated. Governments have been reluctant to acknowledge the scale and role of food banks even as cuts to welfare increase dependence on them. When a public figure described food banks as “uplifting” and “compassionate,” it illustrated a troubling detachment from the reality that a functioning state should provide for its vulnerable citizens. Political reliance on voluntary efforts—what was once termed the “Big Society”—effectively shifts responsibility from public services to communities and charities.
Food banks are a necessary emergency measure, but they are not a solution to poverty or inequality. They provide immediate relief without restoring dignity, security or long-term stability. If society is serious about fairness, resources and policy must be directed toward preventing the situations that force people to rely on emergency food aid in the first place.
I could continue at length, but I’ll leave it there for now.