I manage a food bank. AMA

[Wetherforks]

I manage and run a food bank in a UK city. It's Saturday night and I'm bored. Happy to try and answer if anyone has any questions!

How has covid and cost of living changed the new for donations? Our local food bank used to say no pasta or beans, as they were struggling to store so much. Now they are always on the list. If people donate money, can you negotiate discounts on buying things you need in bulk?

My local foodbank happily takes pet food. I did ask on their FaceBook beforehand because my cat was a fussy madam and I was left with boxes where maybe only 2 out of 12 pouches had been used. They replied they put them on the 'free to take' table, as some people will prioritise feeding pets over feeding themselves. When she died, they ended up with loads of pouches, dry food, treats and unopened litter.

11Nigel yes, our FB has noticed that donations are down .. we used to be overwhelmed with pasta and beans but stocks did get low - although have seriously ramped up since Christmas when traditionally people are very generous. Not sure about negotiating discounts, we tend to buy in from Aldi where prices are cheap(er) anyway. You would need more volunteers to do the 'admin' of getting discounts and that can create an administrative burden in itself....

Definitely donate pet food! We have dog/cat food available on request but it isn't often donated.

We have tea and biscuits available to service users - if they have a dog with them, can almost guarantee the biscuit goes to the dog. People do prioritise their pets.

And cash donations are the most helpful thing of all. And if you can do a regular donation, even better! Realistically what is donated barely scrapes the surface of demand, and we have to buy in the majority of items. We get some grants but no govt funding, and applying for grants takes up a lot of admin time. I can bulk buy according to what storage space we have and fill any gaps in food items.

And having worked for bigger charities and national charities in the past it is a delight to see such a direct system. Money comes in, I buy food, food is given out. There's no fat cat CEO, no advertising budget, minimal overheads and in the case of my food bank, only my wage which comes from a dedicated grant. Obviously I can't speak for other foodbanks or Trussell Trust etc, but have a look at the structure of your local independent foodbank because it's very likely your donation will do immediate good 🙂

For us, smaller jars pleàse. We split multipacks into individuals items but don't rebag coffee and similar for hygiene reasons.

We had an enormous (I think 5kg or so?) bag of ground coffee donated from a local restaurant which sat sadly on the help yourself table for a couple of days, but I don't think we have any clients with a coffee machine let alone for that quantity! In the end a volunteer took it and left a decent donation for it. One of the occasions when it was ok for a volunteer to take something!

Not routinely, no. We don't have refrigeration so only keep long life/cans. If you want to donate seafood cans we'd take them though. A food bank isn't a supermarket, so it's not a good idea to come with specific recipes in mind - you can't be sure of what you'll get!

However, one of my favourite things to do is to hang around the random items table when something odd has come in - half a pallet of parsnips, big jars of pickled onions and the like - and ask what people are going to do with them. Our clients are so resourceful with what they get, it's amazing - I learn a lot! Bouillabaisse would be right up there, possibly made with sardines and added spaghetti hoops.... Perhaps inauthentic but definitely in the spirit of the dish

@Wetherforks do you know about the SuperCook app. It's free, and you save into your 'pantry' all of the ingredients that you have in the house. The app will then show you every possible dish that you could cook, with those ingredients. You can search by cuisine, or by the main ingredient you'd like to use. It will also highlight recipes where you only need one more ingredient.

Makes it much easier to plan meals with whichever combo of ingredients you have.

The app looks like a green spoon, with a pinky purple superhero cape. Might be useful.

This is what I was wondering — I have a few boxes of Nespresso capsules I can't use, and wondered whether my local food bank would be likely to have any clients with the ability to use them. My thinking was that maybe most clients couldn't use them, but perhaps there's the occasional person who had been doing okay before things got tough, has a machine, and would really appreciate being able to have an espresso in the morning for a couple of weeks — if I already had a machine before going through a rough patch, I might not have got round to cleaning it up and selling it, or it might not be worth much, or I might be hoping the rough patch wouldn't last long. But when I mentioned it to my friend I was told not to be stupid, it's a ridiculous thing to donate to people who have no money for food, they're not going to have a bloody coffee machine sitting about. So now I'm not sure — I don't want to annoy anyone or make anyone feel bad, or waste the coffee.

Really please to read that! I often go to the supermarket with the intention of buying for the food bank but forget while on my way round. I have donated money in lieu in the past but was worried this in some way difficult for the people running the place and they'd rather have actual items! But if I can just set up a Direct Debit forget about it and still fell good about myself that suits me down to the ground 😂

Well that's why I asked. My daughter used to work in a charity shop and she told me the manager snagged a fairly new flat screen TV that had been donated.

oh well if your daughter said then obviously everyone is snatching the "goodies" !

Did you mean to be so snarky?

It's AMA. So I did.

Not the kind of thing I would usually ask someone, which is kind of the point of AMA...

personal experience of foodbanls, no of course volunteers are not taking the good donation I can't comment on big Tvs and charity shop managers.

of course I meant to be snarky!

Well that's good to know, thank you.

I run a small independent FB stores too.

To the poster asking about normalisation. I do worry that it does but I rather the risk of that than people going hungry. We refuse all requests for photo ops.

Our cash donations cover gaps on the shelves or buy in specialist items ....

We don't accept baby formula but if it is donated we send it to a foodbank that does.

We have a network between our local food banks so if we have too much of something then we send it to another that is short.

Food that is past it's BBE date doesn't get sent out. We send it to a shelter that cooks meals... They can open it and take a view. If we give it to a person who has no other food options and it isn't right it means they go hungry.

Any opened food gets ditched... We don't know if it has been tampered with. Same with nappies and sanitary products.... if you are donating nappies size 3-5 are best. Newborn size can be given out by health visitors.

We split multi packs if each item is wrapped (Palmolive and Dove soap are good)

I have an irrational rage for Heinz tins because they don't stack.

Small packs are better than big... People can be given 2 if they are needed.

If you have any bags for life taking up too much room in your house put them in your local food donation bins. We are always short of them.

Thank you to everyone who donates. I wish there wasn't a need & I am looking forward to the day I don't have to sort through tins of beans.

I volunteer at a local church run food bank one day a week. I fill benefit forms, speak to housing and direct people to others for advice or help.
Service users are allowed 12 visits a year but after six they have to have advice with money and debt management. The lady who runs it though does turn a blind eye occasionally as some people just aren't able to engage.
We give food, clothes, pet bits and the odd bit of bric a brac.
One a week the church does a bread delivery for those most in need who live locally.
There are the occasional people who aren't there for the best reasons or to sell stuff but they are Sussed out fairly quickly and only come once or twice.
It's run by volunteers bar the vicar and one church worker.

I wonder if there is a network these smaller foodbanks can be a part of ? just to show a bit of support and maybe pass a bit of comradery, I also volunteer for a community food bank well it's more of a pantry and it is interesting how others work, we do take formula if it is long enough dated but we don't ask for it, it is usually in somebody's cupboard going spare, and it's usually snapped up.

@Mrsjayy the ones in my area that are run by churches all talk to each other .and swop
Bits eg one has lots of families and babies so any nappies go there. Ours are more elderly, the lonely and unwell. They come as much for the sandwich and cake as they do the food

@Mrsjayy I asked this very question when I was in before Christmas to donate things and the lady said there was a network they could become part of (sorry I can’t remember the name) but it was for support and good practice. I’ve applied to volunteer and I’m really looking forward to it.

I've just put some toiletries and food donations in our collections bins at Sainsbury's. Someone has put a box of Fererro Rocher in there. It's a 16 pack with about 7 chocolates left. Seems like a bit of a piss take to me. Is this something you'd just put on your 'help yourself' table?

I'm not the OP @RainbowZebraWarrior but at mine we'd take the chocs out of the packaging and offer them as is (since they are individually wrapped) or bagged up together. Last week for example we ended up with a zillion Celebrations, Heroes and Roses but not quite enough for a whole pack per visitor, so we did a bit of a pick and mix with them.

Yes we'd probably do the same at our FB and make up small bags of wrapped sweets ... but we fairly often get opened packets of food ... and out of date items ..it's really disrespectful and gives us the problem of disposing of the food.

What previous posters said, as long as the chocolates/sweets are wrapped!