tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/trussell-trust-26541/articlesTrussell Trust – The Conversation2023-08-02T17:13:58Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2080492023-08-02T17:13:58Z2023-08-02T17:13:58ZHow community markets for all could be a sustainable alternative to food banks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539245/original/file-20230725-17-aqqm6o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=231%2C99%2C7117%2C4803&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-mesh-bag-full-fresh-vegetables-1399930106">Troyan/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The number of people using food banks in the UK has increased from 26,000 in <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/382695/uk-foodbank-users/#:%7E:text=In%202022%2F23%20approximately%202.99,compared%20with%20the%20previous%20year">2008-09</a> to more than 100 times that in 2023. Nearly one in five British households experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in September 2022. </p>
<p>In the financial year to April 2023, <a href="https://www.trusselltrust.org/2023/04/26/record-number-of-emergency-food-parcels-provided-to-people-facing-hardship-by-trussell-trust-food-banks-in-past-12-months/">Trussell Trust</a>, the largest (but not the only) network of food banks in the UK, distributed emergency food parcels to nearly three million people.</p>
<p>Food banks provide free, pre-prepared parcels of food to those most in <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-019-6951-6">need</a>. They have provided a great deal of support for low-income families, especially during the cost of living crisis. </p>
<p>However, they are not perfect. Food banks offer people little choice, are dependent on <a href="https://theconversation.com/food-aid-supply-chains-rely-on-a-surplus-heres-what-happens-during-a-shortage-201355">unreliable supply chains</a>. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0195666316305670?casa_token=hBeZdMw2WXsAAAAA:G4TrJnRMfopSzhbuNlBy3GLvhDY_dvmZCS8nom8Z2_HU9hIhtpQM9gkQPMXHatzREzPLd9m6B_4x">Research</a> has also shown that people who use food banks often experience shame and stigma when doing so. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fsufs.2023.1187015/full">My research</a>, with colleague Heather Hartwell at Bournemouth University, has found a viable alternative. Community markets selling food and household items at subsidised rates to all could be a sustainable solution to the problems with existing food support programmes. </p>
<p>Food banks rely heavily on donations. But rising food prices means even would-be donors are <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-64304620">struggling</a> to buy that extra can of beans and other items. Beneficiaries of food banks also told us that parcels were mostly made up of dried, tinned and processed foods. </p>
<p>While it is important that parcels have a long shelf life, people experiencing food poverty want a choice of fresh and frozen food items, including meat. The constraints in the range and quality of food available are also associated with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25792338/">health problems</a> such as diabetes, asthma and obesity.</p>
<p>Food banks also do not empower people who use them to become self-sufficient. Rather, they often result in long-term reliance on food aid. Hence, food banks offer temporary relief from hunger without addressing the bigger issues that lead to food insecurity.</p>
<h2>Community markets</h2>
<p>Community markets operate differently to food banks. They are open to everyone in the local community, regardless of income level, and provide a range of food choices along with other items such as school uniforms and toiletries. </p>
<p>We interviewed 38 people who regularly used or were involved in the operation of these programmes in the UK. Through these discussions, we assessed how well community markets address the challenges of food security, and found that they are a possible solution to the limitations of food banks and parcel distribution.</p>
<p>Community markets do not solely rely on donations from the public or businesses. They pay a subscription to charity networks such as FareShare, which provide the market with items in bulk, which are sold to the community at a subsidised rate. All revenue from sales is reinvested to pay for future bulk purchases. </p>
<p>People with low incomes who shop at community markets told us they enjoyed having food at affordable food prices and felt a stronger sense of autonomy, and being part of the community. They did not feel their reliance on food support was a barrier to being part of society. As one person said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I very much prefer being able to choose my food instead of being given parcels. … It just feels dignified to be able to pay for goods, even if it is at subsidised rates, and then being able to choose what I want based on what I would like to eat.</p>
</blockquote>
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<img alt="A middle-aged man wearing a face mask and carrying a shopping basket in front of refrigerator cases in a supermarket" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/539247/original/file-20230725-29-6avf8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People across social classes are struggling with high food prices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/middle-age-man-buying-food-grocery-1697983855">Anna Nahabed/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Food for all</h2>
<p>These markets can be used by people from across the community, including those on a higher income. People who were more well-off told us they wanted to shop at the markets because they felt they were giving back, spending their money to be reinvested in the programme:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I thought that people who would come to the market … would be very needy, not only financially but mentally as well but it isn’t like that … I like shopping here because the money I pay is invested back into the community.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Additionally, community markets serve as a hub, offering organised group activities and services for people, such as cooking and gardening classes, yoga and sewing. Through these activities, the community markets are tackling loneliness and other health issues – not just hunger.</p>
<p>Community markets are economically self-sufficient. They use revenue generated from selling products at subsidised rates to subscribe to charitable food surplus redistribution organisations. This financial independence sets them apart from food banks, which often rely on grants. They can also be environmentally sustainable, actively reducing food waste and their carbon footprint by redistributing surplus food to local emergency services and farms.</p>
<p>As more people rely on food aid, it’s important that local councils and national governments support alternatives to food banks. For the family struggling to fill the fridge or the student coping with higher rent, our findings show community markets could be of significant help, while allowing people to maintain their dignity and be part of their community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rounaq Nayak received funding from support from the Science and Technology Facilities Council Food Network+ and the Bournemouth University Charity Impact Fund.</span></em></p>Food banks help millions of people, but have serious limitations.Rounaq Nayak, Lecturer in Sustainable Agri-Food Systems, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1273042019-12-06T13:36:51Z2019-12-06T13:36:51ZWhy some people are being put off food banks<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302653/original/file-20191120-467-17a85ie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C0%2C6294%2C4192&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rotherham-england-uk-february-14-2019-1342132268?src=ff8a4385-36e4-4164-8151-72b028efcbed-1-91">shutterstock/HASPhotos</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>More people than ever before are being forced to turn to food banks. Over the last six months, there’s been the steepest increase in emergency food parcel handouts in five years, according to the <a href="https://www.stateofhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/State-of-Hunger-Report-November2019-Digital.pdf">Trussell Trust</a>, Britain’s largest food bank provider. </p>
<p>The Trussell Trust recently released the <a href="https://www.stateofhunger.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/State-of-Hunger-Report-November2019-Digital.pdf">State of Hunger</a> report, claiming it to be “the most authoritative piece of research into what causes hunger in the UK”. The scale of this work, and the clear links it draws between food insecurity and the welfare state, should be welcomed. </p>
<p>But the report fails to discuss important issues associated with food banks and food insecurity. And it presents a narrative that individualises aspects of food insecurity and undermines the collective response needed to tackle growing poverty and destitution. </p>
<p>The Trussell Trust is an anti-poverty charity “<a href="https://www.trusselltrust.org/about/mission-and-values/">founded on Christian principles</a>” and cites Matthew 25:35-36 as its founding verse:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The organisation actively maintains its Christian identity, recently <a href="https://www.trusselltrust.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2019/02/Head-of-Church-Engagement.pdf">recruiting</a> a head of church engagement with responsibility for “strengthening and shaping the relationship between the Trussell Trust and the Christian community” – and <a href="https://www.theway.co.uk/news/christian-foodbank-trussell-trust-accused-of-discrimination">concerns have been raised</a> that some food banks within the Trussell Trust network employ only people of a Christian faith as food bank managers’.</p>
<p>Yet there is not a single mention of religion, faith or Christianity in the State of Hunger report. It describes the ethnic group of people referred to Trussell Trust food banks, but it doesn’t report the religious affiliation of food bank clients.</p>
<h2>Evangelical device?</h2>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-social-policy/article/all-in-it-together-community-food-aid-in-a-multiethnic-context/1350E18E88FFBFB3035A149CC25724D4">research</a> has identified a stark under-representation of south Asian Muslims at Trussell Trust food banks and found that staff discussions of Christianity in the food bank may be putting people off accessing this food support. Discussing food banks with the manager of a community centre in a deprived area of York we were told: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>People who are already vulnerable and quite often at rock bottom and hungry, trying to keep themselves or their families fed, do not want to have religion pushed in their faces. To be prayed for because they are hungry is not how people should be treated. </p>
<p>I have several times complained to the Trussell Trust and was told that, “It is [our] policy and will not be changed”. We have several people that have refused to take a food voucher due to this issue and have gone hungry.“</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The failure to discuss the religious identity of Trussell Trust food banks and the religious affiliation of clients disregards a key element of food banking in the UK.</p>
<h2>A failure to cope?</h2>
<p>The report provides an excellent, detailed discussion of the impact of the benefit system on people with health conditions, showing how failures in the system drive people to food banks. It finds that over half of respondents in the State of Hunger have a mental health condition and a third are unable to work because of poor health. </p>
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<p>This analysis is framed by language that individualises the food insecurity experiences of people with health conditions in receipt of welfare benefits, for instance, by talking about how people "cope” with “challenging life events” or the universal credit five-week wait. </p>
<p>Our research shows that people with health conditions, particularly mental illness, are fundamentally disadvantaged in the benefits system. For instance, people with mental illnesses lose out financially when they move from disability living allowance to personal independence payments, compared with those with some other health conditions. </p>
<p>This may be because mental health conditions are not well-understood in the social security <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmworpen/355/355.pdf">system</a>. Similarly, the employment gap for people with mental health conditions compared with the general population is at least 10% and higher for those with a severe mental <a href="https://www.gamian.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Miranda_OECD_sick-on-the-job_presentation_Vilnius-2013.pdf">illness</a>.</p>
<h2>Low pay economy</h2>
<p>It is clear from the State of Hunger that problems associated with universal credit are a key driver of food insecurity. The Department for Work and Pensions has acknowledged these <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/feb/11/universal-credit-rollout-linked-to-rising-food-bank-use-amber-rudd-admits">links</a>. </p>
<p>Few respondents in the report were in work, so the focus is directed towards how universal credit functions for people whose wages tend to fluctuate. There is a bigger picture here, though, about the need to challenge an unequal system that enables a low-pay economy and lack of employee rights, which in turn increase insecure employment and poverty. </p>
<p>Asda, a main funder of the State of Hunger research project, for example, is embroiled in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/16/asda-workers-stage-protests-against-punitive-new-contract">controversy</a> over the decision to move their workers on to more “flexible” contracts. </p>
<p>By omitting or compartmentalising these issues there is a risk that the focus is placed too much on particular people and away from the systemic drivers of food insecurity. People already feel stigmatised by their interactions with both the welfare system and <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/BFJ-06-2018-0342/full/html?af=R">food banks</a>. And these omissions could have consequences for the same marginalised people that the report sets out to help.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/127304/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeline Power is a member of the Labour Party and a trustee of the Independent Food Aid Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katie Pybus does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Our research has found that staff discussions of Christianity in food banks may put people off using them.Maddy Power, Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences, University of YorkKatie Pybus, Research Fellow in the Department of Health Sciences, University of YorkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1264762019-11-20T15:27:56Z2019-11-20T15:27:56ZFood poverty at record levels – a children’s book on food banks shows how normal it has become<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302518/original/file-20191119-111650-1uvmbic.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=87%2C0%2C6382%2C4297&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/rotherham-england-uk-february-14-2019-1342132271?src=27af2db1-5271-425a-95db-8ed727d74b78-1-11">HASPhotos/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>“Wake up, mum. I’m hungry!” This is the opening line to the recently published children’s book, <a href="https://www.barringtonstoke.co.uk/books/its-a-no-money-day/">It’s a No-Money Day</a>, by Kate Milner, a powerful exploration of food banks and life below the poverty line. </p>
<p>The UK should not be in a position that such a book needs to be written. But as <a href="https://www.stateofhunger.org/?utm_source=Trussell%20Trust%20Newswire&utm_campaign=61fb2a2ea7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_10_24_08_19&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9643a0ed2-61fb2a2ea7-430676733&mc_cid=61fb2a2ea7&mc_eid=3a12087450">recent statistics</a> from the Trussell Trust, a charity working to stop UK hunger and poverty, have shown, food poverty is not going away. It’s increasingly generating child victims, whose only salvation comes from donations of emergency food provisions. </p>
<p>Food poverty, once just a focus of academic concern, is now knocking on the door of children’s literature. Yet the story told across this 25-page book is becoming an increasingly normal situation in the UK for many families. Indeed, Milner’s book significantly highlights the level of normalisation that has been reached with food poverty in the UK. </p>
<h2>‘Mum goes hungry’</h2>
<p>Milner’s book is not only an excellent resource to talk to children about poverty, but it’s also a good way to show how such experiences don’t happen in isolation. Recent data has shown that around <a href="http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/">30% of children are living in poverty</a>. But what this book also highlights is that treating the use of food banks as normal can be a double-edged sword. </p>
<p>On one side, normalisation allows people to feel accepted, that others are in similar positions. But it also shows the depths the UK has plummeted to and how the social security welfare safety-net has been unravelled by the impact of austerity. A situation that has created <a href="http://www.welfareconditionality.ac.uk/">victims out of a punitive ideology</a> in the name of “welfare reform”, where the bedroom-tax, sanctions and universal credit are increasingly used as tools for “conditionality”. This is when welfare “rights” become conditional on welfare “responsibilities”, in that people are obligated to behave in a certain way to receive certain benefits.</p>
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<p>In 1902, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree wrote of the poverty experienced by families in York. <a href="http://archive.rowntreesociety.org.uk/seebohm-rowntree-and-poverty/">Rowntree stated that</a>:“The food of these poor people is totally inadequate,” adding that “as a rule … it is the wife and sometimes the children who have to forego a portion of their food –- the importance of maintaining the strength of the wage-earner is recognised, and he obtains his ordinary share”. </p>
<p>Milner’s book highlights how, today, there is a reversal of these findings. The child character explains how: “There’s no more cereal, so I have a piece of toast. Luckily, mum isn’t hungry”. Many parents, especially single parents, take the hit on missing a meal when there isn’t enough food – meaning that food poverty becomes hidden within the family.</p>
<p>This same sentiment was <a href="https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/22198649/2018_Beck_D_PhD.pdf">expressed in my research</a>. One woman I spoke to, Donna, told me how commonplace it is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There are mothers, every single day in every town who are skipping meals to feed their children. When you do not have supplies in your cupboard, and you’ve got no means of buying it, you go without to feed your family … [but] you won’t know that your neighbours’ [also] gone without lunch today, because if she eats, there’s nothing to give her kids for tea. So, [we] hide it.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Shame and embarrassment</h2>
<p><a href="https://research.bangor.ac.uk/portal/files/22198649/2018_Beck_D_PhD.pdf">In my research </a> with food bank users, the experience of food poverty was seen as a form of embarrassment. Many of the people I spoke with in food banks indicated they tried to hide their poverty from younger family members – as this conversation between myself and one food bank interviewee highlights:</p>
<p>Tony: “I try to keep that away from [my son]. I want him just to focus on his school, I don’t want him to worry about, ‘am I going to eat today, am I not going to eat today?’”. </p>
<p>Me: “So, he won’t know where this food has come from today?”</p>
<p>Tony: “No. I mean, he’s only thirteen, I don’t want him to start worrying about where he’s going to get his next meal from, you know. To be fair, he shouldn’t have to worry about that at that age.”</p>
<p>It’s clear that many parents work remarkably hard to protect their children from the worst effects of poverty. Yet, disturbingly, the “survivors” of poverty, caringly addressed in Milner’s book, are those who are fed by the inadequate system of emergency food aid provision such as food banks.</p>
<p>I say food banks are inadequate not to take away from the tremendous work they do – they are now a place of “survival” for many – but simply because they shouldn’t be needed in the first place. And that food banks are now entering the realms of children’s literature feels like a further step too far.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126476/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dave Beck does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Food poverty is increasingly generating child victims, whose only salvation comes from donations of emergency food provisions.Dave Beck, Lecturer of Social Policy, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/576832016-04-15T10:33:15Z2016-04-15T10:33:15ZFood bank use is at a record high – here’s what we know about the people using them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118385/original/image-20160412-15891-bv33es.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A helping hand.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Africa Studio/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/clips/zv2b9j6">story</a> of Jesus feeding 5,000 people with just five loaves of bread and two fish takes some believing, especially when read by a modern audience that is used to a society of waste and want.</p>
<p>But while “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/gardening-blog/2014/mar/06/food-waste-wartime-garden">waste not, want not</a>” may well be the choice phrase for millions of parents at mealtimes, food banks across the UK are performing their own small miracles every day in making sure there is enough food to go round.</p>
<p>UK food bank use is still at <a href="https://www.trusselltrust.org/2015/11/18/uk-foodbank-use-still-at-record-levels-as-hunger-remains-major-concern-for-low-income-families/">record levels</a>. Over a million food packages – with three day’s worth of food – were given to people in crisis by the <a href="https://www.trusselltrust.org/2015/11/18/uk-foodbank-use-still-at-record-levels-as-hunger-remains-major-concern-for-low-income-families/">Trussell Trust</a> in the last year alone. </p>
<p>The figures from the charity, which operates a network of more than 420 food banks, underline the scale of the challenge for those tackling poverty and points to a problem with hunger that’s not going away. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/118389/original/image-20160412-15883-5e8dpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">One in five parents in the UK are struggling to feed their children.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Kena Siilike/shutterstock</span></span>
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<p>For the first time, academics from the University of Hull, working with data scientists from <a href="http://www.coppelia.io">Coppelia</a> and consultants from <a href="http://www.aamassociates.com">AAM Associates</a>, developed a <a href="https://youtu.be/oQ7ZlcW6X6Q">prototype tool</a> to map food bank data against geographical demand. As well as showing actual food bank usage the prototype uses 2011 Census data to predict possible areas of food bank need.</p>
<p>Researchers took various census variables, for example levels of deprivation and unemployment <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20160105160709/http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/guide-method/geography/beginner-s-guide/administrative/england/electoral-wards-divisions/index.html">at a ward level</a> and found that many of these were highly correlated with food bank usage per head of population. Food bank use was shown to be higher in wards where there are more people who are unable to work due to long term sickness or disability. </p>
<p>Higher food bank use was also shown to be associated with deprived wards or areas with higher levels of people in skilled manual work. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Food bank use across England and Wales mapped to ward level.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Looking at anonymous postcode data for people referred to Trussell Trust food banks against census data has also enabled the trust to drill down to a micro-level and look at trends specific to a local area, as well as looking at the national picture.</p>
<p>Taking London as an example, the mapping shows high levels of food bank referrals due to benefit delays in certain wards in north and south-east London.</p>
<p>While the data alone can paint a vivid picture of food bank use in these areas, it requires more investigation to really get to the heart of the issue, and to find out if crisis provision is failing in these places, or if it is simply the case that local authorities are working more closely with food banks.</p>
<h2>Practical applications</h2>
<p>While finding out where food banks are used and by who is all interesting stuff, beyond the nitty-gritty of data metrics, there is now the opportunity for this tool to be used on a wider scale and really help to make a difference to people’s lives.</p>
<p>Adding in the referral agencies that provide access to food banks will help to provide another dimension for analysis. The Trussell Trust runs the majority of food banks, but future initiatives to incorporate data from non-trust food banks will also allow us to provide full coverage of UK emergency food provision for the first time. </p>
<p>And in time we will also add more open and external data: for example, to see if and how weather data impacts on food bank use. </p>
<p>On top of this, sharing data with other charities involved in poverty alleviation – for example homelessness charities – will provide a richer picture of <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/food-bank-newcastle-west-end-faces-closure-50000-esa-disability-cuts-a6963486.html">food poverty</a> and deprivation across the country. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">‘Without the food bank I don’t think I would be here today’.</span></figcaption>
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<p>With a joined up approach to data, and insights from other charities and food aid providers, this data could be used by local projects to work out where to target their efforts and which additional services would best help tackle the biggest local issues. And it is hoped this will lead to better informed interventions and greater influence on policy.</p>
<p>Data is a big opportunity for charities and third sector organisations and one that may have an impact that we are only beginning to understand. We hope this early analytics tool will provide a basis for food banks and other front line agencies to create powerful real world data applications.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/57683/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Vidgen receives funding from NEMODE under the Research Councils UK (RCUK)’s Digital Economy programme.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Giles Hindle receives funding from NEMODE under the Research Councils UK (RCUK)’s Digital Economy programme.</span></em></p>Some of the most vulnerable people in society are being kept alive by food banks.Richard Vidgen, Professor of Business Analytics, UNSW SydneyGiles Hindle, Senior Lecturer at Hull University Business School, University of HullLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.