Food bank donations

[Shazzatastic]

Just wondering what others think. I usually add a few bits to the supermarket's food bank collection (the other day I added about about two dozen items as very worried about those who are going without)

Yesterday, one of the news programs featured a food bank and interviewed a lady, but as she went to leave the food bank she had a super full trolley load of supplies. I am aware she may have six kids and it may have to last a while. But it looked excessive to me. Am I wrong in my thinking

I remember about a dozen years ago, struggling financially, what I could afford for the week wouldn't even fill a basket. At the time I tried to make it a sort of game with my daughter, let's see how cheap we can be this week (novelty to start with but does wear thin)

Also when choosing items to add to the foodbank trolley, I wonder whether to buy 2 of the smart price items instead of 1 regular item. I feel mean buying smartprice to donate but figure I can buy twice as many items and perhaps help twice as many

Just wondering what others think

We always put in a couple of items to the foodbank basket if we can and we buy cheaper versions of stuff ourselves so that's what goes in the basket. We can't afford top of the range ourselves so I don't donate it but some own brands things are great.
At Christmas we also donate some selection boxes (when tesco have them for clubcard holders at £1) and some festive treats and Easter eggs too. We do what we can but we aren't loaded ourselves.

My friend was up sjit creek financially when her abusive ex left her and their kids. I spent £50 I could ill afford on groceries to help them out only to discover, on dropping them off, the mountain of food the food bank gave her. They ate better than Dd and I that month.

I used to volunteer at a foodbank and now work in a role where I can refer clients. The food is worked out to provide enough calories and basic nutrients for 3 days. In my area it’s tins and packets not fresh and teenagers would usually be counted as adults so it can seem like a lot of food but it really isn’t. Many people I work with don’t have transport so I will deliver the food to them if they can’t collect. It’s very heavy and bulky. There are so many reasons why people need a referral, some more ‘deserving’ than others, but please don’t start judging foodbank users. Be angry at the government that we need foodbanks rather than worrying about what brand of beans to donate and whether someone has taken more than you think they need.

Yeah I’m like this. The 20p spaghetti is fine but the cheapie tuna is not nice. I buy the same as. I would for my family, mostly smart price/ value some supermarket own, one or two branded bits.

There was once a food bank collection at school asking people not to buy smart price as apparently it’s not nice to receive. It felt very tone deaf to the parents that are buying it week in, week out to feed their families.

How?

It's not a free for all at a food bank. You don't get to help yourself and load a trolley.
Her referrer will have told the food bank why she needs to use it and how many are in the family. She will have been given items pre selected for that number of people

No, but the ‘Oh, I’d never donate value range products’ comments are. I’m sure it’s meant from a good place, but it wouldn’t do any harm to spare a thought for people who aren’t in a great financial position themselves, but still want to help someone who is even worse off. To me, the 20p tin of beans from someone who is struggling themselves is just as kind, if not a kinder, gesture than someone well off buying Heinz because ‘Poor people like nice things too’.

It’s always worth remembering that there is a lot of middle ground between having to use food banks and being well off enough to donate exactly what you’d want yourself.

Our local foodbank also has a table with odds and ends that people are free to take - for example I messaged them on Facebook and asked if they wanted some cat food which was well in date. (Cat can be a fussy madam and I didn't want to bin a box with 10 of the 12 pouches still perfectly fine). They said it was something that was requested and were happy to take it. Four boxes of cat food is pretty bulky.

What @LittleOwl153 said back on page 1. I’m another one who runs a food bank. Two key points for me:

if you are not financially constrained and you’re a family of 3/4/5+, especially with teens, you’d be surprised by how much food you get through in a week. Until it’s laid out on a table in front of you a la Eat Well for Less it’s hard to imagine. Yes, people leave our food bank with two (or more, sometimes) laden bags. Think about what the Sainsburys driver brings to your door etc.

Use of surplus / links with Fareshare - this is brilliant and reduces food waste while cutting our costs but could you distribute 200kg of, say, vegan cheese six hours before the use by date (at which point not only can you not distribute it, but now you have to pay for its legal disposal)? Sometimes we do have mountains of raspberries or asparagus or whatever other high-end trigger food to give away, and people walk away with a lot. If we have tonnes and every other group in the area has tonnes and doesn’t want to take our excess, that’s what happens.

Well said @WomanStanleyWoman2 . I completely agree.

“Sometimes “ is the operative word in that last para.

Worked at a trussel food bank today and packed sugar - didn't realise it wasn't allowed.

We commented today that the list of food is quite old fashioned - do many people eat fray bentos pies, tins of spam and tinned potatoes?

What's frightening is that we no longer need to date donations - there's no time for anything to go out of date it's moving through so quickly.

do many people eat fray bentos pies, tins of spam and tinned potatoes?

It depends on the demographic, basically. The latter are very quick to cook though, which makes them popular round our way.

Oh good. Yet another thread with an allegedly well-intentioned person disingenuously ‘just wondering’ about something they’ve vaguely seen or heard about without any context or understanding, and in the process implicitly criticising food banks and their users.

Just how awful a person do you really need to be to post this stuff, clearly wanting to plant a seed of doubt in the minds of others about this, presumably in the hope they’ll think twice about donating?

Disgusting.

I only donate actual food if it's something I got in by mistake or got given and won't eat, etc. Rather than buy something specifically for the food bank I donate a monthly amount. That way they can fill in the gaps with things they know their clients would really appreciate, and probably at wholesale prices or otherwise leveraging their organization so getting more than I would.

I definitely wouldn't be reconsidering donating because one person on the telly got a decent amount of food from them! But I see you've already reconsidered that, and I do think it's a fairly natural knee jerk reaction to seeing someone with more than you have been able to afford yourself at times. You just need to temper those reactions with a bit of rationality.

I looked into a fb in my area recently for a friend. It told me they only give enough for three days.

Morrisons is great as they have item donations bagged up ready as you walk into store so you can just grab a bag and scan it through at the till at the end. Saves time thinking about what to buy

Some places have a Community Pantry - you join and then have access to very cheap food and other goods.

We commented today that the list of food is quite old fashioned - do many people eat fray bentos pies, tins of spam and tinned potatoes?

Do people struggling with money eat cheap, filling, easy to prepare food? I’d say yes.

None of these products have been discontinued, so someone must be buying them.

I try to buy things that could be eaten cold, if the recipient doesn't have the means to heat them (living in a B&B with only a kettle, or can't afford the energy to run the oven). Cold potatoes and spam wouldn't be a particularly tasty meal, but would be better than the alternative.

A lot of the recipients from our community based Foodbank which was set up during Covid, are single men living in bed sits - often recent immigrants. They often don't have any cooking utensils and access to a microwave and half a shelf in a fridge if they're lucky. Tinned soup, tuna, microwave uncle Bens, pot noodles. . It's really hard to provide anything more nutritious that they can store and cook. One pot jellies and rice puds etc that dont need chilling are super popular!

During Covid there were several amazing projects batch cooking and delivering hot meals but these seem to have fizzled out.