No formula milk available from foodbanks

[CaraDuneRedux]

Times article:
www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/food-banks-ban-on-formula-leaves-babies-to-go-hungry-tcghd25gm

Maybe someone cleverer than I am can do the share token.

But in a nutshell, in order to follow Unicef guidelines, food banks like the Trussell Trust are refusing donations of formula, so as not to be guilty of encouraging women to give up breast feeding.

Note that we are not talking about the infamous bad old days of formula companies handing out free samples on post natal wards so that women never start to breast feed.

We are talking about families where a decision has already been made to use formula, and where the mother's milk has therefore stopped, who then find due to change in circumstance (eg. job loss during the pandemic) that they are unable to feed their babies. They can't magically restart breastfeeding at this point - the choice (given the 5 week delay between starting a UC claim and receiving the first payment) is formula or starvation.

Are others as horrified by this box-ticking piece of insanity as I am? What can we do? How do we exert pressure on the foodbanks to get them to help the people they were set up to help (rather than pursuing some Unicef-approved tick of self-righteousness)?

There may be a health and safety concern. Perhaps they may worry about someone donating out of date formula, a staff member missing it and it harming an infant. Infancy is obviously a delicate stage, nobody wants to be responsible for making a baby ill.

Perhaps a formula voucher should be an option instead for those in need. I’ve always been grateful I’ve been able to BF, I can’t believe how expensive formula is.

Nip off to the shops for someone? We are food banks! We run on a shoe string, aim to cover basic nutrition, were a stop gap are now becoming a long term necessity.

We are not personal shoppers, not a catch all for everyone in every need. We just don't have the resources.

What seems oh so reasonable here in Mumsnet would cause chaos in real life.

Pop to the shops for a specific formula? Yes love. And whilst I am gone there will be one less person working, clients waiting longer, may leave someone vulnerable, lone working etc. It simply isn't doable!

And I say that knowing we are already doing a lot of things we thought we couldn't manage this time last year!

Sorry OP but I think the guidelines are sensible.

As others have said babies can get free formula milk through other routes.
I also think it is no bad thing for HVs to be involved with families where there is financial hardship and babies- it allows for any additional support to be recognised and given if needed.
Babies need a safe supply of food, and donated baby milk may be past expiry date or parhaps previously opened and closed again in which case may be dangerous for a baby.

I don't think his can be blamed on breastfeeding targets- it is simply putting baby's welfare first.

The policy makes perfect sense. This explains it

www.breastfeedingnetwork.org.uk/wp-content/pdfs/Food%20Banks%20Toolkit_final.pdf

How do we exert pressure on the foodbanks to get them to help the people they were set up to help

We don't.

Foodbanks are a charity - not a right.
Produce is given for free by the public, most foodbank workers are volunteers.
It is sad that we live in a society where they have become a lifeline, but making demands or exerting pressure is not acceptable.

Foodbanks have a responsibility to make sure items are safe and within guidelines- so no out of date, no alcohol etc, but apart from that anything else is a bonus, not a right.

LoveIsland there will be reliable stats available soon, I think, we've just provided a set of stats for ONS inclusion (not sure what the mechanism is, not my area).

Anecdotally? After we got ourselves sorted in March/April we started to see people more often, allowed self referral and signposted to other new covid support agencies, when they started getting funding through. That has risen steadily. We are low on even our most reliable of stock (we usually have a veritable mountain of baked beans) and we are using more local resources than ever before. Local businesses are being very generous, which is one reason we are keeping up with demand.

Our nearest Trussell seems to have very similar changes. Out last excess exchange was unusual in that we mainly exchanged information and ideas, not the usual 'swap our tins of peaches for your packets of porridge'.

Things really have changed. Clients used to have some idea of how long they would need support, when their first benefit payment , new job etc would start. Now there are less certainties and more people who need more help to manage.

How do we exert pressure on the foodbanks to get them to help the people they were set up to help

Agree with @speakout, but would add that if you are set on doing this, the best thing is to join one - start as a volunteer, work up to operational planning roles, participate actively and lobby for change from within

Agreed Auntie Stella.

We always need more volunteers at every level.of the organisation. New ideas always welcome too. We have a policy about new ideas. Even if we have discussed it 30 times before, put it into practice 10 times or just plain don't want to do it, we always assign an hour or so to discuss it and work through it, just in case it's time has come.

That's why we now have a popular meals on wheels service. Local pub, covid group and U3A involvement all came together to make it work, despite it having failed dismally last year!

Can you provide some evidence for that? The reports I have read is that in terms of families without other contributing issues (substance or other abuse etc), most users are not in "chronic" need but are driven there by an exceptional event (a benefit sanction, a one off unexpected cost etc)

This from the TT is a reflection of the situation near me (inner London), and the other local groups we partner with:

“ The charity warns that with mass unemployment predicted on a scale not seen since the early nineties, there will be further rises in poverty with 670,000 additional people classed as destitute by the end of 2020, meaning they cannot afford essentials like housing, energy and food. This is on top of year-on-year rises in the number of people unable to afford food and forced to food banks across the UK.” Link

“Chronic” sounds like a value judgment but people lose their jobs/don’t have enough working hours, eat through savings if any, and eventually come to us. The other thing worth mentioning is that if people aren’t financially resilient then the “exceptional event” can cause catastrophe - so clinging on, all ok, but then the car that you rely on for work breaks down and you have a choice between giving up that job and taking out an expensive loan to sort the car. Or the exceptional event being late diagnosis of an illness that stops you working, for example. People in these situations tend to need ongoing food bank support.

@AuntieStella

How do we exert pressure on the foodbanks to get them to help the people they were set up to help

Agree with @speakout, but would add that if you are set on doing this, the best thing is to join one - start as a volunteer, work up to operational planning roles, participate actively and lobby for change from within

Honestly, as both a user of foodbank and, occasionally when we can afford it, a contributor, I wouldn't want to "exert pressure on foodbanks" to supply baby milk or in fact any other specific product. It's a charity, it's run by volunteers & supplied by public donations. If they are put under pressure there is an increased risk that there will be a backlash because people could feel (perhaps wrongly) that recipients aren't grateful for what they are getting. It's a sticking plaster for a rather large wound.

Food banks should not be necessary in a country such as ours. If families are unable to find the money to buy baby milk, food banks shouldn't have to be providing it, for a variety of reasons already explained upthread. It would have been great if our good bank had, but they didn't. Honestly, I asked our HV if we would benefit from SS involvement, we were that desperate. She discouraged me from calling them. Literally no-one would help us.

It's all very well saying what should happen. But the reality is, people don't always have enough to eat in the UK. Food banks & benefits don't only support the poor. They primarily support the rich companies who are allowed to pay pitiful wages & keep people on zero hours contracts, or only offer part time contracts but require full flexibility from their staff.

The baby bank I'm on the committee for doesn't hold stocks of formula either. It's too risky to keep stocks because it's expensive, you have to be super careful of dates and because different babies are fed different brands and they shouldn't just be changed over.

We will buy (or refer on if we have no funds) formula if a referral needs it, but keeping stocks wouldn't be the best use of funds.

The foodbank locally are the same. They'll source formula for someone who needs it, but they don't ask for donations of it for the same reason as us.

Piling the pressure on foodbanks, who are a charity plugging gaps that should not be there, is the wrong course of action. Pile pressure on the government to fill the gaps instead.

What weird thinking...

... Food banks primarily support rich businesses, zero hour contracts etc?!?!

I can't get my head around that logic!

Best look to what it is that allows poor pay, reliance on benefits etc.

I've yet to see OP post evidence that there are babies in the UK genuinely being diagnosed with malnutrition or starvation due to inability to access formula.

This is a ridiculous bar to set for evidence that families might need free formula. Of course, feeding a baby would be the last thing to go in a family. But what are they doing without or not paying for in order to buy formula?

@stellgib we have universal
Credit , we need to help and look at why people's finances are leaving them low when others manage perfectly fine
Is it because they are in private rented and uv credit for rent is nit enough , or exsisting loans when they have lost a job that they are still trying to pay , as well as providing food ,we need to be helping people find a way out so they don't become dependent on a food bank surely

The real scandal is the number of people who need to use food banks.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

What weird thinking...

... Food banks primarily support rich businesses, zero hour contracts etc?!?!

I can't get my head around that logic!

Best look to what it is that allows poor pay, reliance on benefits etc.

Who are food bank users?

I saw an article headline on Friday - didn't read it - where it stated that Premiership football clubs should pay all their staff the real living wage so they don't need food banks.

Seen previous news articles which I actually read where it asked for companies and organisations that used outsourcers for their staff like cleaners to get them to pay the real living wage so they don't need food banks.

I was part of a research study for the WHO recently around infant feeding attitudes and one of the questions was did I think that generic unbranded baby formula would be helpful and I think it would most probably because it would be cheaper.

I see that food banks may not be the best way to help families struggling to feed babies but I'd agree that we need a better way than we have just now.

was part of a research study for the WHO recently around infant feeding attitudes and one of the questions was did I think that generic unbranded baby formula would be helpful

A little short reaching in my estimation.

There were many many other questions, that was just one of them that I found interesting.

Who says unbranded formula would be cheaper? Are we saying the government should make it so it can control costs? Which no doubt would be at odds with the underfunding of BF support, or do we think any company would be keen if they were forbidden (not sure it's legal but in theory) to make any/not much profit from it? It's a lot more complex then silly women being under the spell of advertising, or making it cheaper- although no one wants to actually invest money and resource into the underlying reasons women FF despite being apparently keen to increase numbers.

Food banks primarily support rich businesses, zero hour contracts etc

Well they do. If people were paid a fair wage and given regular hours, they would be a lot less necessary.

Food banks DO subsidise big (and small) business.

It's somewhat different now with a lot of people not able to earn at all, but nobody should be working full time and unable to feed their family. And nobody who needs full-time work should be exploited with zero hours contracts. I am not completely against zero hours contracts, they allow flexibility for both sides if you eg are a student or semi-retired but are no good for a breadwinner.

The logic behind me thinking unbranded formula would be cheaper is that a lot of the money made from formula goes into advertising. There's no advertising if there is no brand.

@Mylittlesandwich

The logic behind me thinking unbranded formula would be cheaper is that a lot of the money made from formula goes into advertising. There's no advertising if there is no brand.

One sole brand of formula wouldn’t work though as some brands don’t agree with some babies.

So you’d still end up with advertising for generic tin 1 and some for generic tin 2

Who are food bank users? Here? All sorts of people. All sorts of jobs, trades and professions!

You may have read about the ways one section of the clinets base we have are treated bu their employers, but that is not the whole story.

Having said that, as this seems to be a growing point of view, I'll make the suggestion at our meeting this week. We need to close down in order to force employers to pay fair wages.

Our unemployed clients can ask the governent for more.

Our newly unemployed, used to have a well paying job and have no idea how the fuck they went from holidays in the Algarve to no food in the cupboards, can eat their memories.

Our self employed, didn't get any support in September and October, haven't had any work since April, can look forward to their next SEISS, sometime in December

The pub landlord whose brewery has just doubed his rent and expected yearly purchase levels, but can't run takeaways etc as it doesn't fit the brewery business model, can tell his staff that he should have paid the money he didn't have

There are more. But hey! It's the food bank's fault for supporting their morally bankrupt employers!

Pshaw!

A huge part of this problem is when you allow food banks to be such a big provider to those in need rather than adequate welfare or wages.
Having said that the Unicef guidelines are problematic when it comes to food banks, particularly for established formala fed babies.
For those saying that Health Visitors give you formula vouchers etc, there's definitely a lack of awareness about this. I've had two babies and I never knew that. Thank goodness I was lucky enough that we could afford to feed them. I thought the lady in the article was brave for speaking out.