Foodbank buying items from shops?

I can only talk for my local one. They are mainly a community shop so obviously they buy and sell food.

I have a monitor on my TV that documents the adverts I watch, in return I can choose from various vouchers, the vouchers are worth about £10 a month.

I don't need them at the moment so I asked if they were useful to the community shop. They asked for Argos vouchers which I thought was because sometimes they have families moving in to the area with nothing and you can get lots of household items there.

What they do, which they actually asked if I minded, is raffle them, that turns a voucher in to a pallet of food.

Mine does give out food that is out of date but not as part of the food bank or shop, they are just put on a table for people to take.

The foodbank is a bit different because of the shop, so they can give out fresh meat and veg. They also have a policy of giving out 'a nutritious meal' so for a family, as well as the tins / packets they might get a (frozen) chicken, potatoes and veg with maybe some gravy granules or stuffing.

I'm on a large council estate so some of the people who need help might have left a refuge or be an asylum seeker. As someone said above, people don't always have a fridge or freezer, when you move in to a council property you get the property, no flooring, curtains, cooker, fridge.

So it is a good idea they also run family cooking where families come after school and cook a meal together that they can take home.

They also run cooking classes because not everyone knows how to cook and even if you do if you have just arrived from Libya or Somalia you might not know what to do with a tin of baked beans.

@girlfriend44 and dont forget to also add toothpaste, toothbrushes, dog food, baby milk powder and nappies to your donations.

Food banks can't give out, out of date or short date food, they may get given it but it tends to end up being binned. I can't give out, out of date food at work when I run competitions etc. It's no different at a food bank.

Taken from Trussell Trust website
"We can only give out food that is in date, so please no out of date or very near its expiry date."

Someone will also do a stock check and keep a list of what they are running low on, what they don't need etc. They will then rotate stock in the store so they know what needs giving out first.

They can also recieve grants from local councils (ours did but it got stopped when we changed political parties) and local companies very often donate money, so they can buy fresh food. We have lots of large UK Hqs in our area who actively donate money weekly and at Christmas and Easter send in massive donations.

I make a donation every month to our local food bank. They have running costs - lime a van - that they need to be able to meet.

? I've been to food banks and they definitely get a lot of stuff that is going out of date. Most of the food where I went was on the turn, that's how they got it.

I use out of date food - its easy, because I have a big chest freezer so I can save stuff, I can repurpose stuff like take the salad out of sandwiches and freeze them without it, or cook up a batch of something thats about to go out of date, then freeze it.

I have a healthy store cupboard full of spices and flavourings, so if my TGTG box has a glut of something or a random selection of something, I can make a curry or a chilli or use it to pad out some batch cooking or make soup.

I also have time, working from home and a partner who is my carer who is here all the time, to run around collecting TGTG bags and batch cooking to make use of short dated and random stuff.

I also managed to afford a whole load of dishes that can go from freezer to microwave or airfryer, they werent cheap!

Someone using a foodbank may have none of that, they may be working all the hours that exist for nowhere near enough money and running around after kids, and trying to cook with none of the basic staples, none of the luxury extras, no vast chest freezer. Maybe they haven't had the benefit of learning to cook from a parent who could cook either.

Making use of short dated/past date stuff is great, but it isn't something everyone can do, it is something some of us may choose to do.

People donate money to foodbanks so that food can be bought to give to people. I thought everyone knew that, the Trussell Trust for example is a charity well supported by many. They receive food donations but are not always going to have exactly what is needed so have to buy. They do not take out of date tins and packets, anything like that which is donated is thrown away - the last thing they need is for people to get food poisoning from what they are given.

Count yourself lucky that you can’t imagine being unable to afford food. Sadly, many people struggle to afford the absolute basics (food, shelter, healthcare). I’m not in the UK, but none of these are completely free in my country. Then you add things like education (also not free, but mandatory) for kids and it doesn’t take long to see how people struggle.

Charities continue to provide and advocate for those who are struggling. Including providing food.

It’s nice to be able to think that this is just something people deal with for a week or two, but poverty is more pervasive than that. No amount of budgeting and tightening the belt can get you around an income that is below what you need to manage. Food banks make a difference for people week in week out. Including for people with medical food restrictions.

I used to donate regularly but have stopped as I instead donate to developing countries now.

Ocado has managed it. You can now add £2.50, £5 or £10 donations for food bank to your online shopping trolley and they match it, then convert to groceries for distribution to food banks. Well done Ocado.

i stopped donating to food banks when I read a thread on here about families accessing food banks for 2+ years continuously, and then learned this was a regular thing. And ‘shopping’ at the food bank.

The reason why there are more food banks than ever is because people cottoned on to how the system works. Same with our country’s bloated benefits bill. Food is an emotive subject, no one want to see anybody go hungry, so people donate and keeps the whole thing going.

I think the op was hoping for a pile on the 'greedy / lazy ' sods that use the food banks .
But the opposite has happened, its raised awareness, proved links to how to and who to donate to .
So thank you @girlfriend44

Whatever the point of this thread was, it’s prompted me order some of the things from my local foodbank’s Amazon wish list, so thanks for that, OP!

Best before & use by are different things

It's not just bread that's necessary to avoid - it's pasta (a very common foodbank item because of it being a cheap source of calories), noodles, most cereals, pulses, grains and other foods that aren't long shelf life either contain or are likely to be contaminated by gluten during manufacture. If I were dependent upon a foodbank for whatever reason, I'd have to ask for things labelled gluten free rather than risk being made ill.

It's bad enough for somebody being poor, we don't have to say 'well, you can live upon boiled potatoes three times a day, starve, be in excruciating pain or have us contribute towards your eventual death from cancer, then' as punishment.

People donate money to foodbanks.
People who use them have allergies/intolerances and can't just have the standard stuff.
Our local buys things like dairy-free subs, eggs, and occasional treats.
Fortunately I'm in a relatively affluent area (in the main) and people are happy to help out with donations, time and organisation. Lots of shops donate end of day produce with short dates.

I don't know. I recall a celebrity interview once where the person self righteously criticized people who had fallen on hard times, as this person stated that she had had times where she wasn't working and she had to sell some of her jewelry collection for money to pay her bills. She didn't understand why poor people didn't just do that.

Exactly, I don't get how people are so clueless, do some people just not concern themselves with anything about other people to the point where they think homeless people are all old men from the 1890s, living under bridges feeding from the bins and tying their trousers up with string. Some people really have their heads up their bums.

Food banks are not allowed to collect or hand out ‘out of date’ food and are highly regulated.
Vans are paid for and run by donations and fundraising. Sometimes food such as staples especially tin tomatoes and baked beans have to bought in.
why don’t you go and volunteer at one to find out how they work and look after people in food poverty in this country?

the good thing is, things like biscuits and crisps ARE likely to be included in the main parcel. ours was the week before Christmas, and we had some fancy harrods chutney, mince pies, some chocolates and biscuits etc. alongside the staples.
they also asked about if we had any pets that needed feeding. but as I had rats, not cats or dogs, they didn't have any policies for that, but after discussing it with me, they gave us extra cereal and pasta.

I volunteered at a foodbank years ago (disappointed they are now a part of the fabric but that's another debate) and people would regularly give cash donations so off we went to the local supermarket and bought the staples/whats actually need, as food donations are not hugely consistent. Not sure why you'd even think this was an issue.....MN though, innit

Somehow I don't think the OP will feel like people using food banks should have pets either....

A lot of food banks local to me will only allow a specified number of food parcels to individuals within a certain period of time eg 6 months & then they have to wait eg 6 months before they are eligible again. This has been standard for quite some time now as some had developed a dependency on the foodbanks & instead were choosing to buy drugs and/or alcohol instead of food. In the cases of substance users (drugs/alcohol in most cases) most prefer simple uncomplicated food requiring little to no preparation eg pot noodles or pasties.

"Hello hungry person, have some out of date chicken"

"What do you mean your kids got campylobacter last time?"

took us four months to get my husbands refused disability benefits back. it left us worse off by more than our rent, every month. fortunately, on the mandatory reconsideration, it was correctly reinstated.