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

To do that we’d need cooking facilities and a much more stringent food hygiene cert. We have neither. Plus, generally our beneficiaries want to cook for themselves and have different tastes etc - preparing and processing food for hundreds of people isn’t comparable to a large family meal unfortunately.

Fab idea. You've offered your time to take care of that then?

Did you read and understand the post you quoted? Who’s going to cook meals to suit all people from the produce they have? How is it going to get distributed once cooked?

You’re not talking about food parcels from a food bank. You’re talking about a soup kitchen, or free community lunch project. Which do exist, but are totally different and time consuming and expensive to operate. Look to the religious communities, you’ll find them feeding people like you want.

I volunteer at a food bank. But I don’t think I’d have the time to prepare, cook, and portion out soup. Certainly not with the regularity that I volunteer. And where would I do it? I don’t have the space to make any worthwhile quantities in my kitchen, and there are no cooking facilities where we’re based.

I don’t want my council tax going up even more to fund food banks. If you don’t need one now perhaps you could pay it back and donate. I work for a charity with a mobile food van and we only request food and toiletries that can be stored.

Fine if you have money on the gas and electric meters.

There are all sorts of food hygiene rules on supplying home made food such as soup. Storing fresh food would also be a nightmare.
I agree that tinned and dried food must be boring but it’s by far the safest. I do try to vary what I donate so hopefully someone gets coffee, tea bags, biscuits, granola etc that makes their diet more interesting.

What a ridiculous idea that Foodbanks should be making soup.

Try a soup kitchen for that.

We can’t give out anything that isn’t clearly labelled with all ingredients.

The soup kitchen is what does precooked food, then the food bank for a few tins and then it’s the community fridge for fresh stuff.

None of these places should have to exist well maybe community fridge as that’s just to help solve food waste but like olio tbh.

But for a lone adult person you’re not ever going to get much from the food bank because it is to stop starvation to tide you over. Its never going to do a full roast dinner or whatever.

Pre 2010 (and going back way into Victorian times) there were thousands of churches, charities etc. that provided the exact same service that food banks do today. All that's happened since 2010 is that the same services have been rebranded as food banks and joined an online register. Hence the apparent increase in numbers.

I thought it became Tory policy to direct people to foodbanks at the Job Centre.

A lot of things that we seem to be expected to go without now are impossible though.

I am replying as someone who has never needed to rely on a food bank, but I did 18 years ago live with no TV, no phone, no computer or internet, no dishwasher, no tumbledryer, no car,and only spent £12.50 a week on groceries as we were skint.
We also lived without oil for 18 months and had no other form of heating, apart from an electric shower.

We did this as I'd become ill and couldn't work, had no benefits and just bought a house, now in negative equity on the strength of my salary. Paying a £700 mortgage on a £15,000 wage.

I also lived very well a few years before this earning approx £13,000 but my rent was only half of £350 p/m and that was for a house in the city centre. Now the same house is £1,200 p/m, and the job still doesn't pay much more than it did over 20 years ago.

So things don't add up.

Now to educate your children they NEED access to the Internet, so you have to buy Internet connection and computers.
Can't depend on the local library as it's now only open 1 afternoon a week. 20 years ago ut was open full time.

I can't imagine you could manage modern life without a phone, agreed you don't need an expensive model or heaps of data. But you are expected to be contactable 24/7, especially if you are on benefits.

Bus and train fare is so expensive it is cheaper to run a car.

I accidentally forgot my purse and ended up in lidl a few weeks ago with £15 in my pocket, even buying very prudently I barely got enough for 1 dinner and a weeks worth of packed lunches and I do cook well and am able to stretch things (not a chicken though lol)

I buy most of my clothes and DS second hand, though since the explosion in second hand sites charity shops are now much more expensive.

Everything is so much dearer, wages haven't risen and life is shit for so many people.

We need a living wage, people in work shouldn't need benefits, rent should not be over what you can earn in a month.

The government should not be palming people off to charities in order to feed their citizens.

In 1997 I was teenage single parent with a baby, my total income from benefits was around £65 a week, which was child benefit including an extra £5 as a lone parent top up, an allowance for the baby around £17 I think, an allowance for myself and a milk token, I'd often have to decide if I should put £5 on the electric key or buy bread and milk, when I think back how difficult it was and how I struggled - a food bank would have helped me out no end, even just a few tins of soup and a bag of oats.
I remember speaking to the Health Visitor who suggested I applied for a crisis loan, but the place I had to go to apply was two bus journeys away and I didn't have the fare.

Those were awful times for me and many others- there was no money, not a penny spare, I still think back and can remember just how hard it was and how my child really did live in poverty - I feel so guilty for that, I really feel for people now in a similar position, it's easy to say don't have kids if you can't afford them but life's not always that straightforward.

This is in no way a 'Be grateful' post, we have a food bank in my town that anyone can just turn up to and they will give you what you need and I'm pleased it's there for the children and parents who are struggling, I'm lucky enough not to need it, and I will donate to it when I can, it's a lifeline for people young and old.

You just moaned in your OP about being GIVEN soup!!

Sounds like you’re an expert and need to set up a food bank… You could slave over a big vat of soup and then when people turn up and tell you that soup isn’t filling I’m sure you’d have an alternative planned…?

I'm not sure that they did.

They may have provided different services for different groups.

I volunteered for years cooking lunch for the elderly along with my granny who had been doing it for 40 years before me.

There are many churches here who did that, or offered student lunches for evangelism etc

I've never heard of a church (here) in "modern" times before 2010ish who offered meals or food to families, to poor people who weren't homeless or lonely, just to allow them to eat in their own homes.

Yes I've heard of asking for donations to furnish a newly given home or clothes for a women and her children fleeing domestic violence. But never for ordinary working people who are paid so little and have so many bills they can no longer afford to feed themselves

Food banks don’t have facilities to keep fresh food unfortunately in general and a lot would then potentially not get used. Some food banks can only open 1/2 days a week because they are run by volunteers and the staffing level isn’t there.

Also it’s what people can donate and where. Big supermarkets do donations however I don’t know how often they are collected and the items requested are normally tinned items/long life

The cost of housing I think is to blame. In the 70s/80s/90s most families only had one working parent and one would usually stay home. It was possible to survive on one wage. I don't think that's the case anymore. So a single parent, even when working, may find that rent + bills +food is unaffordable.

What you're arguing for is free shops supplied and run by the council. That's a complete nomsense. Shops already exist, and that's where people should go to obtain food. Having enough money to buy that food is another matter altogether.

Community Kitchens provide decent fresh food.

Food banks offer a few days food that requires little effort and preparation. Many clients don’t have cooking facilities or experience.

Food that I wouldn’t touch with a barge pole is very popular- tinned burgers in lard, tinned pies, instant soups- because of high calories, easy preparation, and potentially light to carry.

Your needs aren’t the same as anyone else’s.

And they are run on donations and by volunteers.

Honestly people are not fit for purpose and that’s why people are in such a mess. Food banks never even needed to be a thing.

I know people that volunteer and they do their very best all the time within the resources and funding available. It’s really better than nothing and I have NO idea why you’d come here to complain about it tbh.

Income support in 1990 would have the purchasing power of £69.05 and income support now is £67.20. That's a marginal difference.

Income support was being on the bones of your arse in 1990. I lost a stone and a half. Being poor is a problem however you slice it and whenever it happens.

Rent alongside cuts to welfare. Cuts to child benefit, five week wait for UC, benefit caps, bedroom tax, not keeping in line with inflation.

Tougher restrictions and penalties to claim and remain on benefits. Cost of childcare, lack of living wage, hike in utilities, increased debt, petrol prices, food increases.

One food bank had closed down here. Less people are donating and volunteering. It's never going to improve because it's charity, and it relies on people's donations.

I don't think there was anything wrong with what you were offered OP. Food banks aren't for supplying you with delicious meals. They're for people who have literally nothing else to eat.

I had to use a food bank twice last year, despite working full time.
I found they were only open during work hours, whereas I was the 'working poor' struggling with bills.
In a city of 130,000, I found only one open on Saturdays.
OP the one I used gave me a lot of varied stuff.
It was a difficult time and felt humiliating, not being able to pay my own bills.