Healthy food for the food bank

[Pimpleminds]

DD's school want donations for the food bank for their harvest festival. I asked my friend who works there what they were short of and she said hot chocolate. Spurred on by this I picked up some instant hot choc and a box of coco pops but DD was horrified: 'no mum Mrs X (head) said it must be healthy food for people that don't have the money to buy things that are good for them'.
AIBU to think that if you are using a food bank you might want the odd treat as well?

Different, it's that many if you count the individual things. A family of 3/4 would get, for example, 6 tins of beans, 6 tins of soup, 4 jars pasta sauce/tins tomatoes/curry sauce type things, 4 meats, 4 fish, 4 veg, 3 fruit, 3 rice puddings/custards, 2 cereals, 3 milks, 2 fruit juices, 1 potatoes, 1.5kgs pasta/rice, tea, coffee, sugar, 2 biscuits, jam if we have it, sweeties for the children if we have them and then perhaps some wee extras like super noodles or those packets of pasta and sauce (particularly if there are teens in the family). Occasionally, I get donations of fresh fruit/butter/eggs/part baked bread and the like which I can give out as well.

Family of 5/6 would get roughly 25% more, so 8 tins of beans, 8 tins of soup etc., but the same amount of cereal, juice, tea, coffee, biscuits and the like. Single person would get 3 beans, 3 soups, 3 veg, 2 fruit, 2 meat, 1 fish, 2 rice pudding and so one. Couple gets 4 tins and so on.

Thanks everybody for the thread - and for the excellent lists and thoughts. It spurred me to turn out my cupboards on Tuesday night so that I could take down a few bags of stuff to the local foodbank yesterday evening - all good stuff but items that I likely wouldn't have used in time. (It's only a pity that my local FB can't accept glass items so eg the jams and sauces in jars couldn't go.)

I won't be so tardy from now on.

this might be a stupid question, but if one ordered a supermarket delivery to a food bank (delivery slot when they are open obviously), would it be accepted?

stressed I'm glad you mentioned the part bake breads. I bought a pack of pitta breads in my food bank shop and figured since they have 2 months date on they should be fine, and might be a welcome addition to dunk in soup or put in a lunchbox. But it was another "not on the list" impulse thing. Prob should stick to the instructions really!

mine accepts part-baked bread - petit pain type ones

Do all food banks not accept glass jars? I often put in glass jars of Ragu/Dolmio sauces?

I checked their wbesite before I packed the bags and they specifically said that they don't accept glass. I even mentioned it to the man I left the bags with - in case I'd made a mistake or they were a bit more liberal 'on the ground' - but no. They won't take them which is a bit of a shame for jam.

That's just my local FB though and they're independent and not with TRussell or similar so I'm assuming they have their own rules and reasons.

Sorry - I specifically mentioned jam because that's something I've never seen personally in tins. (Or at least not the normal size.) I'll still try to find a home for the glassed provisions that I don't want - it's just that my local food bank is very local and as I don't have a car, I could take the stuff down there on foot.

you can get jam (or jelly rather than jam i expect) in squeezy bottles i think?

I guess they may have had problems with a glass jar breaking in transit, and ruining packets of cereal etc. I donate to the Tesco one. It isn't Trussell, but I don't know which one it is. I will avoid jars from now, just to be on the safe side.

On the Choc issue - we always throw a bar into the bags and some biscuits - people don't get to choose their items but they often leave food they don't like behind. We have lots of extras they can choose from, things like cooking oil is great because it's expensive to buy and won't provide you with a meal. We do get some odd items but the only thing that's depressing to receive is food that is out of date when someone has cleared their cupboards. The meat products sometimes look a bit grim...so I think it would be worth spending a bit more there.

We seem to run short of rice pudding and custard, no idea why.

I suppose you could do squeezy honey instead of jam, would be useful for rice pudding/porridge/on bread off the spoon or is that just me, but can't think of much else jam-like that isn't in a jar tbh.

Sainsburys basics peanut butter is in a plastic tub, and is really nice, we get through tons of it and I always donate some.

here is some squeezy jam

no idea of quality/flavour though

I would guess that most FBs would take jars - it's just that my local one won't - so please don't go just by my own experience.

Luxaroma

I have to say that I checked the dates of every item that went in the bag.

We take jars, we take most things just not the out of date stuff and tatty dirty looking packaging.

We accept jars too

we also accept jars. Like Lux, it's just out of date or really grubby stuff we don't take. Oh or stuff that's already been opened - it was a surprise to me the first time someone tried to donate a half eaten box of cereal!