To think food banks aren’t fit for purpose

[ForFirmBiscuit]

I don’t need to use a food bank but when I did they gave me tins of soup, a small tin of meat pie, a litre of UHT and a small bag of oats, nothing fresh. I didn’t get much and I was really hungry as there wasn’t enough calories and it was insubstantial. It gave me loads of anxiety to be so hungry. It’s always been like that.
I think food banks should be supplied by the council and given proper budgets for good food, even if they made batches of soup themselves to give out it would be more filling than a tin of soup

Logistically it's too challenging to supply fresh food. In an ideal world people would obviously have enough money to buy food themselves, but in the state the country is in the next ideal is for food banks to be linked to other community initiatives.

For example, the one I volunteer in has the standard fare on the whole- tinned, canned, dried and long life food, but the community centre does hot lunch & dinners a few times a week, the charity who collects surplus stock from supermarkets drops off stuff that still has some life left in, and the social teams are good at getting people access to the fresh foods vouchers for those with young children.

It means you are asset rich if not income rich and with a net worth in the hundreds of thousands at a minimum.

@Riversideandrelax

Most food banks aren't there for that. It's a crisis 3 or 7 day service.
Longer term, people shouldn't need food banks & should be supported to live independently, not kept reliant on this kind of service

As I said, I was not talking about emergency food banks.
And with the best will in the world some people are unable to live independently. Other services would have helped them in the past. Now it's weekly food banks.

Maybe, so?

If being “ungreatful” for a food bank parcel that doesn’t meet the calories I need to sustain me and has left me hungry makes me a troll to you then I don’t care. This isn’t Oliver Twist.

We have a community fridge in the small town where I live. They have a small unit funded by the local Council and It's entirely run by volunteers who work closely with the local supermarkets who donate their surplus stock usually yellow sticker stuff. The volunteers pick it up every night the perishable stuff is frozen and labelled. It's open to anyone in the local community without any discrimination. The way it works is you can choose 10 items 2 from each section Fresh ,Frozen ,bread, dry goods and fruit and veg. I think its a brilliant system to combat food waste. They also get flowers and plants donated, which they sell for thir funds.

They have a responsibility to give good food by filling the gap for the government to then not need to

@ForFirmBiscuit it probably would fill your baseline calorie requirements for 3 days, but not if you pick & choose what to eat from the parcel etc.
Also, it's not gonna kill anyone to eat 1500 cals or so for 3 days. You should still be grateful.
It's not to provide perfect balanced nutrition for long term health. It's a stop gap for 3 days provided by donations.

So?
Because theres others that would be more than grateful. No one , including food banks HAS to give anyone any food...its not a duty of care, its from goodness of their hearts (those that donate). If it's not good enough for you, leave it for someone thats grateful. Im outta here. I think OP is purposely winding folks up on here.

Apparently Taylor Swift has been donating to foodbanks in every place she's played.

Councils have had their budgets cut by around 50% by the Tories, many are barely functioning.
There's a lot of naivety generally about the state of our local governments, and assumptions re what they are financially responsible for - they are on their knees! It’s depressing that we have normalised the whole concept of food banks. Bloody Tories and bloody austerity. Makes me furious.

I have five houses and can assure you that 'hundreds of thousands' is FAR from what my assets come to! Nowhere near!

Poor you!

I don't understand your anger. Foodbanks are run by volunteers using money & food which is donated. This is what they have to work with. They don't cook or make meals. They just do what they can with what they have.

Now that you are back on your feet, l hope you are making donations when you can to help your local foodbank.

I am only correcting someone who seems to think that being a landlord makes one super wealthy. I am stating a fact, it doesn't.

Just thinking, why are they called Food Banks and not Food Charities.

Is it the use of the word Bank is normal, everyone uses Banks

Perhaps it's because people pay in (donate) supplies and others withdraw (receive) them. A little like traditional banks/building societies where savers fund loans granted to others.

Food banks are not a statutory service. They are under no obligation to feed you.

It means that you cannot save up enough for a deposit on a house. Most recipients of UC are working.

It's not easy to save on benefits but some people manage it.

Hmmm… If all those reliant on food banks were like you , I for one wouldn’t donate to any again. If you don’t like what they give you , earn some money and buy what you want. Problem solved!

It is a gift to help you, from someone who doesn't have any obligation to you at all, never mind have an obligation to give you a certain number of calories, and the administration of this gift was done voluntarily, by people who also have no obligation to you at all, and were gifting their time

The government shouldn't provide food banks with generous funding to supply tasty fresh food to their users. They should provide the users with benefits at decent levels so the food banks aren't needed any more.

From a purely practical point of view, it would be much more efficient if the people who currently have to rely on charities to give them gifts of food could use the same supermarkets as everyone else. But more importantly, allowing people to do their own shopping just like anyone else would give them more dignity and control of their own diets and lives.