Foodbank buying items from shops?

[girlfriend44]

I always thought that foodbanks were given out of date stock when I saw them collecting from shops and supermarkets.
I have now found out they buy items from certain retailers at a reduced price.
They put orders in. Where does the money come from to purchase?
Also they have vans, which cost money in petrol etc.
Anyone else think the same, never realised they were collecting stuff they had ordered in. I thought it was donated to them?÷

I used to do a run to Tesco to pick up the going out of date food as an olio volunteer. To be honest it was a mixed bag of yellow sticker stuff going out of date that day. Random tins / packets that had six months left to go. Fruit/ veg and always lots of bread.

I used to freeze the ready meals and they were given out to folk via olio app. Tins and packets went in community pantry so did much of the fruit/ veg you can give out good after a best before date but not use by date. No one really wants a lot old bread so a lot of that was composted.

I did think it was a bit of a win winfor the supermarket as they got a writeoff for a donation. Kudos for giving and saved themselves waste disposal charges.

“Do-gooder” is an interesting insult, isn’t it? Doing good. You’d think that would be… well… good. Funny old world.

And my apologies for not having read the entirety of your celebrated œuvre. Remiss of me.

@MaterCogitaVera a very interesting insult! Is the opposite and ‘better’ state to be a do-badder? A don’t-gooder?

I’d rather be a do-gooder than a thundering, judgmental arsehole without a shred of basic empathy. No doubt that makes me woke or ‘typical of a leftie’ which seems to be the next favourite insult.

I think you lived a pretty comfortable life to have such a conception of poverty.
From your posts, it sounds like you imagine that users of food banks should only be people who are homeless, with no phone or access to the internet, and never on Mumsnet or other sites you entertain yourself on.
And, let's not forget, these people are only allowed to use food banks temporarily, while they fix their life, apparently...

I suggest you run a little experiment. Try and get a job offer without using internet or a phone. Try and apply to any service you are entitled to, insisting that you cannot provide a phone number, an email, an address. See how easy it is to get back on your feet when you have nothing to stand on.
If you ever land in dire straits, the last thing you should let go of is your phone and internet.

So many tragic misunderstandings derive from having never experienced the life of those we want to judge and dismiss.

1. you need to be able to get to the supermarket, that can involve paying for a bus and / or taking a couple of children out in the cold.

2. you then need to pay for the food.

3. you have to be able to get the food home. I gave a lift to someone from a local, not cheap, supermarket. She had 3 children with her and had distributed the food for them to carry. It was the youngest carrying a packet of cornflakes in a carrier bag that he had to hold the bag higher than his head and was trying to see through the handles where he was going that made me offer the lift.

4. you have to have the means to cook both physical things like a cooker, power and pans. You also need to know how to cook.

5. throw a disability, SEN or allergy in to the mix and all of the above becomes 10 times harder.

You inow exactly what 'do-gooders' means - it's more than just doing goid things. It's having to be seen to do 'good 'things and also to judge those who don't do the same 'good' things as them.

I judge people who are ignorant and selfish and who have no community spirit and who think the poor are somehow undeserving. Does that make me a 'do gooder'?

I'll have another t shirt made and add it to my 'proud to be a 'lefty-lawyer' collection.

No, it makes you judgemental.
It's nothing to do with being left or right wing either - many people with left leanings feel like foodbanks are just a sticking plaster.
Nobody has said 'the poor are undeserving', we've said that some people abuse the generosity of others and that more should be done so those genuinely in need aren't so reliant on food handouts to begin with.

@girlfriend44 Are you for real? What world do you live in?

Read this link, and you will find out from the start provider of foodbanks in this country how they work.

The Trussell group, who are the providers base of foodbanks, are an umbrella of the Christian church run by the local community churches on a non-profit making base.

You can not just turn up and get food. You need a voucher that is from a local service such as social workers, Dr, health visitors, etc.

As for seeing the same people going in and out, how do you know they aren't volunteers? You don't. How do you know the bags of food you see them with aren't being delivered to someone? You don't. Why the hell should people have to have out of date food

I could carry on. The message is clear - presumption is an opinion based NOT on facts you could research

www.trussell.org.uk/our-work/what-we-do/how-food-banks-work

In fact, I absolutely agree with you on most of that. It’s a disgrace that we live in a society where private individuals and charities have to feed people in need. It’s a disgrace that our society is so geared towards making sure the rich get richer that people can’t feed themselves in the first place.

It’s also inevitable that any system which aims to improve people’s living standards will be abused.

The differences between our positions, I think, are these:

a) I believe in looking at the underlying causes of poverty, including the underlying causes of a person making what you call “bad decisions”. Lack of education, lack of prior experience of healthy financial behaviour, childhood deprivation, poor mental health, societal pressure to spend... These all factor in to what you call bad decisions. Those decisions don’t happen in a vacuum, and people who grew up in poverty or with other kinds of deprivation are less equipped to make good decisions.

b) I believe that a certain amount of cheating is inevitable because that’s human nature. While it’s best that the agencies involved try to mitigate it, it’s not enough to make me feel that my donations to foodbanks are wasted.

My experience is that the amount of actual fraud being perpetrated in these situations is usually vastly smaller than critics imply. But even if it weren’t - even if the chances of my donation reaching someone in “genuine” need were as ridiculously low as, say, 50% - that would be okay with me. Because it would mean that a full half of the time my donations would contribute to helping someone who has been treated extremely badly by life and by our society.

I don’t care whether you donate to foodbanks or not. You have the absolute right to decide whether to give charitably, and where your donations go. If you oppose them on principle, that’s completely up to you. I just disagree with you that the people who make “good decisions” and the people who make “bad decisions” are separated solely by individual character and choices. Our society skews people’s chances of ending up in one or other of those groups. Many (not all) of those in the “bad decisions” group are there because their childhood circumstances put them there.

Food banks get pretty significant grants from local councils as well as physical/financial donations from private individuals. The food parcels might be a bit random if it was purely down to donations of products

You sound like you really don't approve of them having the means to collect and, if needs be, distribute food?

At our food bank clients open the boxes and check the contents. Anything that is not suitable for/surplus to their needs is put on the help your self table.if it gets a bit full we take it back and re-sort it. About half goes back on the table and the rest ready to go in boxes.

This proves I think that people’s are not greedy and only take what they know they can use. We also have a sign up saying cans can be swapped for ring pul. We know that some clients do not own a can opener or do not know hoe to use one.

Our Community Fridge receives excess items close to end date from shops and restaurants. Anyone who's prepared to queue can have a bag from them.

Our Foodbank is supported by local businesses and donations of both food and money. You have to fill in forms and be eligible to receive items.

Hope that helps!

I know that putting food in the food bank box feels like you are doing something tangible,cbut in reality, making a monthly donation is better. Not only does it mean that the food banks can buy what they want at a discount, you can also gift aid it.

lots of people using food banks DO work, and work hard, but are still struggling.
lots of other people using food banks are temporarily out of work, and need help to tread water until they're back on their feet.
and lots of others are unable to work due to disabilities.

you know most foodbanks don't have the facility to store fresh or frozen food. and not all foodbank users have the facilities or enough to spend on energy to cook fresh food from scratch, even if they're very good cooks normally.

I know if I was hungry, and it was a choice between a pot noodle and nothing, I'd be glad of the pot noodle.

we were referred by the CAB, who also put money on our electricity key, and helped us with requesting a mandatory reconsideration of my husbands WCA that pretty much made out he wasn't disabled and should be working. the man can't even leave the house on his own without panic attacks.

Especially if you were in emergency housing, and your only cooking facility was a kettle.

They can't entirely rely on donations because they need a variety of different food groups.
You may be thinking of foodshares which distribute unwanted or almost out of date food discarded by the supermarkets. They just give out what they are given and many don't have any referral process, you can just turn up and pay whatever you can, if anything.

Charitable donations and fundraising.

I have never used a food bank and am lucky that when I was in need of food to feed me and my kids through no fault of my own that my parents often did a shop for us but without them I definitely would have needed to use a food bank, my point is that I also have no idea about the ins and outs of how food banks run on a daily basis but that doesn't mean I don't approve or agree with them.
Some right nasty shit stirrers on here implying that the OP is being goady and is really saying that she looks down on the people using them because "they can read between the lines and can tell this is what the OP really means"
People just make shit up on here and run with it

nahhh. I hope they do. they need that eye opener.

right. I'd rather do good than harm.

Of the 400 who were referred to the food bank I volunteered at 3/4 are working. I’ve met lots of people working for Deliveroo, care home staff, teaching assistants even some nurses and once a junior doctor. People in expensive areas especially are struggling to pay their rent, heat their homes and buy food even when working.