Let's talk food poverty with Oxfam and Unilever - read how MN bloggers got on during a recent visit - you could win a £250 voucher NOW CLOSED

[AnnMumsnet]

As you may know we have been working with Oxfam and Unilever to showcase their efforts with the work currently being undertaken via their partners Trussell Trust and FareShare with foodbanks in the UK. All together the support from Unilever is worth over 2 million meals to those in need.

You can find out more about the project, and Oxfam’s role here: here

Unilever says "Many UK families struggle to make ends meet. At Unilever, we are working with Oxfam, and its partners, Trussell Trust and FareShare to turn this around. We see a bright future where people from every background can thrive"

Since 2012, Unilever has helped provide nearly two million meals by supporting Oxfam’s work in the UK. This has included helping to set up foodbanks with the Trussell Trust and enabling the distribution of good quality surplus food through FareShare.

Oxfam recently hosted 4 MN bloggers for a day where they learnt about the projects first hand - they say "we were pleased to give the chance for the bloggers to explore, engage and to inspire them to write about food poverty in the UK and Oxfam's role in addressing the issue".

You can read about how the bloggers got on my reading their - sometimes very moving - blog posts by clicking on their names below:

In this post, Being Tilly's Mummy describes her own experience of struggling to feed her family, and how going to a food bank helped her get back on her feet, on a practical level, but also emotionally. Visiting Brent reminded her that a shoulder to cry on and a listening ear is sometimes just as important as receiving the food.

Blogger WitWitWoo wasn't sure what to expect when she visited the Trussell Trust's food bank - especially when she learnt it was in a church - and was a little nervous about the experience. But what she found a warm, safe, welcoming environment, free from judgement.

For Joy to the World, the experience made her realise how important it is to bust taboos around using food banks - she found laughter and camaraderie there, and was struck by the kindness and generosity of local business owners who were donating food.

For casa costello - who went to Liverpool - she was overwhelmingly aware of the dingity - saying "nNo-one should be made to feel worthless or embarrassed about needing the help and this was such a strong message at Crosby"

themeltonhouse was unable to attend at the last minute but also blogged

On this thread we'd like to hear about your perceptions and possibly experiences of foodbanks. For example; have you made a direct donation, does your business get involved with this scheme, have you been on the receiving end of a foodbank, do you think you need support like this?

Sometimes this is a contentious issue, but whatever your view, please post your thoughts below. As a gesture of thanks, one winner who posts will win a £250 voucher for the store of their choice (from Unilever).

Please add your comment by 2 January 2015. Standard Insight T&Cs apply

I donate to my local food bank, and the DCs also donated some treats to the food bank as one of their advent tasks (I set them "giving/helping" tasks each day to help them understand that Christmas isn't just a time for getting)
Someone asked me this morning where she could donate to a food bank, I directed her ten steps away to the collection box in the church entrance!
It needs to be easy to donate to food banks, and there should be better awareness of what items are needed and why (eg. food that can be cooked quickly and has long date lines, to save cooking fuel)
I'm glad food banks exist, but it's appalling that they are necessary in this day and age.

I wish we could get into a position where minimum wage would be a living wage, and so the need for regular food bank use was reduced.

School donate all the harvest festival, and also the excess food from parties (Parents are asked to supply savoury or sweet depending on class - they get mounds) to the local food bank, so we do indirectly donate.

Our local Tesco had mountains of basics tins at the entrance recently to encourage people to pick some up, and then drop off in the collecting trolley on the way out. But I feel horrible buying those in need stuff I wouldn't buy for myself, and we don't tent to eat the bits that the food bank are asking for. I understand why it needs to be stuff with a long shelf life, but I'd love to buy up everything on a sun afternoon when its all reduced to 10p, and donate that.

I am also fortunate never to have needed a supermarket. My local Tesco often has a collection for a foodbank. Sometimes they have the collection point visible as you walk in, which is very helpful as a reminder, but the time they had a poster stated what they needed was great, I much preferred buying what was needed rather than what I thought might be helpful.

I would like to see more permanent collection points at supermarkets, because it's an easier way for the majority to Donate, as well as a 'donate to food bank' option on online shopping, although in but sure I'd trust that to actually happen, not too sure why!

I donate a few times a month, there's a collection point at one of my toddler groups for the one can trust, and in the new year when things with my dc die down I will be looking to donate some if my time to helping them out.

I've used our local food bank a couple of times. I am on benefits as a disabled single mum with a disabled child. We get a decent amount in benefits but have high expenses due to disabilities, so we have to cut back on food sometimes. It wasn't easy to get referred, I was worried about being judged so didn't want to come straight out and ask for a referral at first. A lot of the referring organisations here are very hard to access (e.g. CAB you can only get an appointment if you turn up early in the morning, which is impossible unless I take my DD out of school as well). I have a medical support worker though who did help, but I only heard about it really through the national press, it's not something that they publicise at my clinic (they often have posters up for all kinds of advice/help services) but they seemed reluctant to offer it until I mentioned it myself.

The actual experience of going to the food bank was fine, and I didn't feel any sense of judgement from the staff there. It was just getting there in the first place that was difficult. It is in my local area, but I live on the other end of the council boundary so it was a bit of a journey to get there, I had to pay a bus fare as well. It would be better if they had local distribution points.

I think it should be easier to self-refer, especially if you're on benefits. It's not as if people will be turning up simply to get free food, and everyone knows that if you're on benefits that you're certainly going to be struggling to feed yourself these days, so you shouldn't need to have to jump through more hoops. And they are very limited with the help they will offer, I have used them three times this year but I'd be questioned if I needed them again. But it's not as if my benefits will be going up by much more or that I'll get income from anywhere else.

i don't think it's true that people on benefits 'obviously' will be struggling to feed themselves - certainly not people with children (ergo also getting child benefit, child tax credits) and also on disability specific benefits (top up to tax credits, pip/dla, etc) - honestly i've been a lone parent of one child on benefits before and cannot see how (short of massive debts for example there should be need to struggle to buy food so no i don't think simply being on benefits should auto qualify you for free food. i think the working poor on zero hour contracts may have a far better case for needing help.

what i would say is that it is hard to find out about help. as an experiment today i put into google a number of search terms to try and find out how i'd get free food, help with food, food bank help etc in my local town and all that comes up is how to donate food or restaurant guides. even if you get onto foodbank sites it's all about how to donate to them rather than how to get help from them so presumably they expect people to be referred to them rather than actively seeking help themselves?

Food & energy prices are going totally out of control at the moment and it is a real struggle to keep the supermarket bill down to a sensible level. To supplement our usual supermarket shops I have taken to using Approved Foods which is an out of date / close to date website for discount foods and it has drastically helped with our food bills as I pay about a 1/3rd of the RRP or less and it's all shipped to the door.

My Mother-in-law volunteers at a food bank and sees a lot of people really struggling even though they are in work. It's a really awful state for our country to be in and the Government has hit a lot of the poorest and disabled with unfair benefit reforms. Ideally the supermarkets and the Government should be doing much more to keep the cost of food down and make it much more affordable to everyone - noone should be starving in a country like ours which is one of the richest in the world. I think it's a disgrace and time things changed.
In the interim, we need to pull together as communities and make sure that the food banks are well stocked with more local collection points and we need to take more care of those we know who are in trouble.

I don't think enough promotion is given about them, teach more school kids of their role and get them to tell parents

it occurs to me that if i needed to use one i'd need to take ds with me and as i don't drive and live in the sticks i'd need a return bus ticket for us which i believe would cost over £7 and would take at least half a day.

to be honest if i had £7 i could buy quite a few bags of pasta and cans of soup at the local shop.

anyone give a clue of what you get in a bag from the food bank? not in need of one but wondering if it would be worth it for someone who lived around here?

Our local Food Bank were overwhelmed with the generosity of schools, churches etc at harvest festival time. I love that this is such a simple way to give something practical that makes a real, tangible difference for people, but I hate that our society is in a place where they're needed so badly.

TheHoneyBadger the Trussell trust website says of parcels from their food banks (they're the umbrella organisation for a lot of the local ones): 'Each foodbox contains a minimum of three days nutritionally balanced, non-perishable food.' There's a shopping list online with the things they ask to be donated, so I guess the boxes are made up from those kind of things.

Our Children's Centre has a collection box at reception for food items to go to the local food bank. I go to the Children's Centre at least twice a week and ALWAYS make sure I take a handful of things to put in that box. Last week I found out that across our 5 centres, we had been able to give 117 donations in the last few months which made me so happy. I do our food shop online, and not being really well off, buy a lot of the supermarket own brand food. I stick a few extra things on to the shopping to donate to the food bank. And I do it all year round, not just at Christmas, as people need help all year.

It doesn't make me happy to know that there are many, many people out there who need food banks, though. That is so wrong. And I know that there is a stigma attached to the people who use them sometimes. But I also know that there a lot of people in genuine need of support, be it short term or long term.

I haven't had to use a food bank before, but I am all too aware of how close some people are to using them who perhaps never thought they would ever need to. I never ever EVER thought I would ever be homeless. But aged 20, and 9 months pregnant, I found myself homeless. It took 6 weeks, with my son being born into our temporary accommodation that was super damp and was sprouting mushrooms on the wall, to get our own place where we have been since. My husband works hard and although earns minimum wage, we make sure we have all our monthly bills saved up a month in hand and try to save where we can. When we were homeless, we lived off very little food - not great for someone about to have a baby, I know - but we didn't know how to access food banks, where they were etc. So we managed and survived.

I wish that all food related businesses - fast food, restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries etc, could give their left over food to a food bank each night. It wouldn't take much to load up a boot of a car and drive to the nearest food bank and drop off all of that food that would otherwise go straight into the bin. I think it's awful that so much good food goes to waste when it could go to helping someone in need.

so glad this is being talked about,after an 18 yr break up due to domestic violence i was left unwell enuf to return to work, financially destroyed and before this happened i always donated to food hampers etc and toys and things like that, we were in a position to do so and my mummhad been helped by the salvation army many years ago when her marriage had broken up so she always donated to them what she could, over the last four years ive been really struggling, ive had to get used to bargain hunting in supermarkets have learnt being extremely frugal and never throw leftovers away, ive been very lucky as a local charity came with a food hamper for me the other day as well as a tesco voucher too im over the moon, its so important to try and give something to others we could all do a clothes clearout a book clearout there is always something that another family would be delighted with, i found some of the girls clothes which were in great order and left them to the womens refuge, if we all help each other even in a small way we are also passing a good message to our own children as well, thank god for charity ths year, i have food in my cupboard.

so glad this is being talked about,after an 18 yr break up due to domestic violence i was left unwell enuf to return to work, financially destroyed and before this happened i always donated to food hampers etc and toys and things like that, we were in a position to do so and my mummhad been helped by the salvation army many years ago when her marriage had broken up so she always donated to them what she could, over the last four years ive been really struggling, ive had to get used to bargain hunting in supermarkets have learnt being extremely frugal and never throw leftovers away, ive been very lucky as a local charity came with a food hamper for me the other day as well as a tesco voucher too im over the moon, its so important to try and give something to others we could all do a clothes clearout a book clearout there is always something that another family would be delighted with, i found some of the girls clothes which were in great order and left them to the womens refuge, if we all help each other even in a small way we are also passing a good message to our own children as well, thank god for charity ths year, i have food in my cupboard.

I do find it shocking that there is a need to have food banks, I think the supermarkets should do their bit in terms of subsidising the basics, making them as cheap as possible.

Like another Suggestion, what about donating points, or even rounding my shopping up to the next pound, with the money buying food, if they did that to every customer that would help surely

We have been lucky enough not to need to use a food bank, but I am fully aware of how the tide can turn. I think that food banks are an absolutely brilliant idea. We always add a few extra items to our weekly shop whilst we can to help those who need it xx

stickchild i'm thinking i could get more than 3 days of non perishables for the £7 odd it would cost me in bus fare. i guess this only really helps if you live close to a food bank and definitely not viable for the rural poor.

As it's Christmas, we emptied out our food cupboards of all the tins and packets that we had collected over the year bit not used. We bagged them all up and we took them to our local food bank. It was a great thing to do with the kids at this time of year as it shows them that Christmas is not just about receiving gifts... but giving as well. And remembering the needy.

I've never had to use foodbanks personally but I have donated to them before and still do. It's hard to fathom that some people have fallen on such hard times that they have to resort to using foodbanks otherwise they'd starve. We take the smallest things in life for granted that we truly don't appreciate what we have. So many of us complain about vegetables or a certain food, and we don't realise that there are people out there that don't have that kind of luxury.

I have donated to food banks, the easiest ones for me are those that are in supermarkets so I can just add something from my regular grocery shop

i'm really wrestling now to get my head around how three days of tins could possibly be worth shelling out bus fare for for yourself and young children for anyone who lives rurally.

i was aware how much tougher it must be for rural unemployed (re: losing potentially ten per cent of their jsa on bus fare to sign on) but it hadn't occurred to me that things like food banks would be unaffordable for them. the 'three days' limit seems the norm having had a google. that makes it totally uneconomical for anyone who has to make a long journey on public transport. in addition of course there is the premium prices paid at shops out of town.

are there foodbanks that deliver?

TheHoneyBadger I'm not sure about food banks that deliver? It would be a great idea for, as you say, those who would have to spend money on public transport to access their nearest food bank. I honestly don't think there is enough information widely available on food banks. For instance, why 3 days? And what if you still need food after those 3 days, do you have to wait in between donations? I guess, though, that if food banks rely on voluntary donations, they probably don't have the funds to deliver to those in need?

It seems it it easier to donate rather than access the service if you need it.

Our "local" foodbank delivers - they're recruiting for volunteer drivers at the moment.

From the Trussell Trust website: "Some foodbanks also run a rural delivery service, which takes emergency foodboxes to clients living in rural areas who cannot afford to get to a foodbank."

I've been fortunate enough to not need to go to food banks, however it's very disheartening when I read about how much they're needed. Even more so that many people don't even know they exist.

I've been donating to foodbanks for a few years now and although I personally have no experience of using them, i do constantly read about them and try and find other ways to help. It's not right that i'm comfortable and there's someone else out there trying to find enough money to buy soup.