Foodbank buying items from shops?

There are many people, me included, who donate money to food banks so that they can operate and buy the things they need. Otherwise they only end up with what’s going out of date or is overstocked or that people in supermarkets think they’d like as donations.

Which I imagine means a lot of short dated fresh food that people might not have the facilities or be able to afford to cook, such as mince, and a lot of dried food like pasta and rice. When what they probably need is tinned food, toiletries and things that can be cooked without too much energy. No point giving someone who can’t afford food a cut of meat that needs 3 hours in the oven to cook, or lentils that need to be soaked for hours.

Donations

They're a charity

What do you have against food banks OP?

I suspect it’s the people who use them that you have a problem with?

But they're not homeless, they're on mumsnet so presumably with wifi/on a phone etc and comfortable enough to be scrolling mumsnet so this doesn't relate.

I volunteered at one through work before Christmas. It is shocking the amount of out of date crap people donate.

Maybe it’s just me, but your diet would be pretty grim if you relied on the stuff donated, a lot of tinned stuff. They used the money donated to buy fresh stuff which they give out that day.

What was surprising was the amount of ‘returns’ perhaps showing that if the had more cash donations they could give out what was really needed.

register-of-charities.charitycommission.gov.uk/en/charity-search/-/charity-details/4017223/financial-history

OP did you think food banks didn’t accept payments as donations?

This. Surely you knew this, op?

Not being pedantic, I genuinely don't know how this works. Are the lists available somewhere?

On occasion we will donate things out of hampers we've received that are nice but not to our taste, say a fancy Christmas pudding or F&M jams or something, are we wasting our time if it isn't on the list?

Donations of money. I having a standing order set up to donate to my local food bank each month.

Why on earth would food banks give people out of date food?! That isn't very charitable is it?

Of course they buy food. I will start to donate cash instead of food - great idea

Those of us who donate money to food banks, because we realise they need money to pay for things like vans, petrol, insurance etc…

I help out at a food bank. We can’t believe that people donate out of date items or opened ones. We put the dates on the packaging. Some donations include things like miso soup, sauerkraut and quite fancy stuff that isn’t on our list to provide. Sometimes our stock can get low for certain items and that’s when we go out and buy these items with money donated. So if anyone does want to donate food items please check dates. Do not think that receivers of items will be happy to eat them - would you and if so keep them and eat them yourself because they just get thrown out. Thank you to all people who are generous and donate though, really appreciated.

Of course they can't give out out of date food!

I donate money every month to our local food bank - I used to just pick up extras on my weekly shop but they can buy it cheaper (and make sure they buy what they need) and often have too much of certain things. I'd prefer to know my money is going to things that are needed, rather than a can of rice pudding to sit on the back of a shelf for a year!

It makes sense and is surely more efficient for them to buy a bulk order of whatever they need rather than relying solely on a mish mash of items donated by individuals. I suspect the whole thing would be much more easily run (less sorting, fewer collections, having what they actually needed) if more people gave money via a monthly direct debit than put a tin of beans in the box every time they shopped, but for lots of people for lots of reasons that’s too difficult or not how they want to give so food banks accept donations in kind too.

As for dietary requirements, it seems entirely reasonable to give gluten free food to a coeliac for example or dairy free to someone allergic to milk, or do you imagine having food allergies is some kind of luxury only rich people are allowed?!

Still no use

Clearly you don't

Better pray you never need one.

But maybe now, you'll think about donating

Have you ever seen the episode of Rich Kids Go Homeless where the stuck up princess girl waxes lyrical about how she would better her own life if she was homeless, then within one night she's in tears because she's hungry and has realised she hasn't actually got anywhere to sleep..

That's what your comment reeks of.

Tesco and Morrisons do give away food and it's not out of date.

The vast, vast, vast majority of people using food banks are in desperate need. It is not only humiliating, but unreliable to rely on food banks long term. Which people 'around here' are doing this? If you actually know them, and you know for sure they don't need to use the facilities, then you should report proof of this to the food bank. If, as I suspect, you have just heard this from someone 'around here', then you should make an effort to educate and inform yourself.

OK well yes, it's pretty widely known and many of us donate money not items in order that it can be best used.

And how do you think they collect the food from Supermarket bins and get it to the foodbanks?