Let’s Do Things Differently

We founded the Alliance for Dignified Food Support in 2022. Millions of people in Britain had become reliant on emergency food aid to eat, and there were more food banks in the UK than branches of Greggs. Our research has found that people accessing food banks experience a type of ‘hunger trauma’, which goes far beyond anxiety or depression. People describe shame, a loss of identity and a sense of worthlessness.

Meanwhile, we have spoken to hundreds of volunteers, who are making impossible decisions each week about who gets food, and who goes without. Many food banks spend over a thousand pounds a week on food, and are still struggling to keep up with demand.

Food banks, funded in part by local and national governments, have become an unofficial public service. One that is unregulated and staffed almost entirely by volunteers. We developed our Dignity Toolkit to support organisations to centre dignity in their practice, and to raise awareness of the ethical complexities around emergency food aid. But building better food banks was never our aim.

That brings us to 2026. The UK Government has committed to ending mass dependency on emergency food parcels. Their Crisis and Resilience Fund guidance suggests we are headed in the right direction.

The way in which we respond to poverty is not inevitable. One day, we will surely look back on the early 21st century the way in which we now look back on the workhouses of Victorian England – aghast that in a country so wealthy, people frequently queued around the block to be given a bag of nutritionally inadequate food, just so they wouldn’t go hungry.

Now is the time for change. Joining our Food Bank Free Britain campaign means joining a movement committed to doing things differently. It means prioritising cash first support for people in crisis, advice and specialist services that create resilience, and community projects that build real connection around food.

Let’s work together to create food bank free places, where people thrive.