I was recently invited to present at a parliamentary breakfast. In fact, it was to be this morning. But a general election was called, so the breakfast was cancelled. I wrote a report to be handed out at the event about the state of Food Security in England and how it has increased alarmingly. 2018 before the pandemic, the rate was about 1 in every 10 adults. In the summer of 2020, the rate increased by 50%. The situation in 2022 was 1 in every 4 adults.
Vulnerabilities have also shifted over time. In 2020, gender was not a predictor of food insecurity. It now is. Women are more vulnerable compared to men. Those who are most vulnerable earn less than £32K (46.4%), those who are not in paid work (44.8%), and those living in the most deprived areas (39.9%). The groups with the largest percentage increase are those that earn less than £32K (20.5% increase), those not in paid work (16.5% increase), and those in the non-white British ethnic group (14.4%). The groups that showed the highest rates of growth, albeit starting from a lower base, are those who earn more than £32k per year and those over 65.
There are things we can do to address this increased barrier for many. We can work locally to help build the capabilities people need to be food secure, which means improving not just the financial resources people clearly need but also the other resources that facilitate food security in the longer term, such as health, well-being, community connections, and local access to good food. This is what the food ladders aim to do.
Other things could be done at a larger scale as well.
Those who fund community interventions can provide adequate funding to enable these interventions, which includes helping to cover the longer-term costs of paying staff a living wage and providing funding that helps to cover running costs. There is a lot behind offering a service that needs to happen, which is not directly part of the service itself.
The food industry can help organisations with food costs. Asking them to pay full price to offer food at a discount or for free is not sustainable for the organisations doing this work.
In-store, offering incentives to purchase healthy food and making these foods less risky for customers is important as well. The Food Foundation has done some research that explores key metrics supermarkets are doing on this front. Some do better than others. The report has some good ideas.
The government can empower local authorities to develop and deliver food strategies. This will require funding. This was a recommendation in the National Food Strategy, and it should be taken up. The government can also consider and support the need for social investment in levelling up strategies.
Ensuring that people have an adequate income with opportunities for advancement and progression is also needed. Being food insecure should not be reserved for the wealthy. To have a workforce that is able to work in the long term requires that they be able to eat a healthy diet. Without this, health suffers ,and the need for support services increases.
Acknowledgements: This research was funded in part by a UKRI HIEF Knowledge Exchange grant. Special thanks to Isaac Tendler for his work interviewing local authority officials and for the cover artwork. Thank you also to Nicole Kennard for the interview material with people struggling in 2020.
I am frequently asked to explain what a food desert is. I thought I would make this short video to provide an understanding of how I approach the issue of food deserts. I have written more about them inthis post about a report I was involved in, and this post is an extract from an Encyclopedia chapter that I wrote concerning food justice and foodscapes.
A short video about food deserts and how they come about from a consumption perspective.
People make rational choices within the constraints of their choice sets. Choice sets are constrained by the resources they have at their disposal, such as skill, time, mental and physical health, and money. These choice sets are also constrained by the physical and social conditions of the place in which they live, broader institutional contexts and their own social positionalities.
When there is a concentration of people making similar decisions based on similar circumstances, demand for an item, such as healthy food, decreases.
At the same time, food retail operates within a system where profit-making is the main priority. When an item ceases to have sufficient demand to maintain its profitable status, it is usually dropped from the range of products offered. Shops close when the ability to profit at the store level is insufficient compared to other store locations.
Slide demonstrating the effects of living in a food desert
What happens is that places become hollowed out, and foodscapes are degraded. For those who live in these places, the struggle to manage increases. When people are facing a struggle, their physical health suffers, but so does their mental health.
There is much a supermarket can do to support people to access the food they need. For example, be willing to take a loss on some food items because they are important, keep a location open and provide low-cost but healthy food items because that is what people need and consider not the profitability of a single store or product line. This might involve asking what level of growth or profit is enough? Importantly, supermarkets have recently made decisions to limit their profits due to the cost of living crisis, so there is room for manoeuvre in this space.
Source: This is money. 7 May 2023
But this is not something we should just leave to the supermarkets. For a transformed food system, we also need to generate diverse foodscapes. This means providing multiple avenues for accessing food that extends beyond and reduces our dependence upon supermarkets.
I collaborated The Bread and Butter Thing and The Food Foundation on a survey with households with who have children in year three and above who do not receive free school meals. Respondents are parents who are members of TBBT food club. The results show that children are missing out on lunch because they fall through the cracks in Free School Meals provision or their parents are just above the (extremely) low earnings threshold. What is more, the number of parents within this group who are missing out on meals is even higher. The results are below.
Households where at least one child is in year 3+ and is not registered for free school meals.
Households with a child in year 3 or above not registered for FSM (n=734)
Yes
No, but worried
Either skipping or worried
I would like my child to have FSM
Child goes without lunch at school some days
15.5%
42%
57.5%
Child eats a smaller lunch at school some days
31.5%
30.6%
62.1%
Child eats a less healthy lunch at school some days
30.5%
21.9%
52.4%
Children are having to go without food or eat smaller meals because they can’t access free school meals
Household with a child in year 3 or above not registered for FSM
Yes
Parent struggles to feed children at the weekend (n=734)
36.9%
Parent skips at the weekend to make sure children have food (n=734)
62.5%
I would like my child/children to receive FSM (n=529)
85.3%
Parents are doing their best to feed their families but go without food.
Comments from parents who say they are skipping meals include:
My child is home-schooling at the moment, and yes, we do skip some meals daily due to being short on food, but unfortunately, your child has to be in school to receive free school meals I’m working to get him back I to school but will be a bit of a wait due to him having some problems that need diagnosed so he can receive help he needs in school.
I have 5 children and my husband lost his job in Feb 2023. We have been unable to access Universal Credits as the system is too complicated as I cannot attend all the appointments because I am self-employed childminder and always have children with me. TBBT had been a lifesaver in helping me to provide healthy food for the children but by Monday packed lunches are bare minimum of whatever I can find leftover for them. Some of my children are on school meals as they prefer this and they are always paid as I prioritise food for them they don’t have many luxuries other children have but TBBT has helped me ensure they have a good diet. I have been able to make huge panfuls of vegetable soup with the quantity of vegetables and banana bread which had become a staple in our home but free school meals would be such a blessing. I often skip meals if there isn’t enough of one meal or I’m bogged down with work and juggling everything to make sure the children have their needs met.
The threshold for getting free school meals is so low that even though I do not have much money after bills, I don’t qualify. I am on a low wage due to disability and struggle to make ends meet a lot of months.
I am just over the income threshold so don’t qualify for free school meals. This is financially difficult as when you work, there is very little help. I am so grateful to the bread and butter thing as this makes all the difference. My kids would never go without food as I would never allow that to happen but it would be such a help to receive free school hot meals. Usually, we do 2 days pack lunch and the rest we pay for hot dinners, this keeps the cost down a little.
Because I claim legacy benefits, I’m not entitled to free school meals even though my income, according to universal credit, would qualify me. No matter how much I plead with the council, they don’t help.
I work part-time and receive universal credit top-up. I wish my child was eligible for free school meals. I make sure she has fresh fruit and a sandwich every day, but I can’t afford much else.
Because I receive working tax credit, I do not get any help with rent or meals. It would be better not to receive it (working tax credit) because it’s costing over £100 a week for school dinners for my 2 teenagers.
Both parents work, although one is a part-time worker, to avoid nursery costs. We don’t receive any benefits as over the wage limit but pay a mortgage, 1 car which is needed for work, and every other household bill we pay. All bills are covered, so no debts but little left from 2 wages for food.
Who gets Free School Meals?
All children in key stage 1 (reception, year 1 or year 2) in England who attend school (e.g. are not home-schooled) receive free school meals (FSM) regardless of household income. Those in year 3 or above do not automatically receive free school meals; instead, they must qualify and register to receive them. Children who are home-schooled also do not receive them. Qualification is based on household income, benefits receipt, and registration in a government-funded school. For those on Universal Credit who have applied for FSM after April 2018, the household income must be less than £7,400 a year (after tax and not including any benefits received). If the household income increases above the threshold in the future, but the household income still includes some Universal Credit contribution, children remain eligible until they move to the next phase of education (e.g. from primary to secondary school). Before 2018, there was not an income threshold for Universal Credit claimants. Importantly, having a sibling receive free school meals does not automatically qualify a second child’s (often younger) eligibility.
A claim for FSM is made through local authorities and is typically instigated by parents. However, some local authorities, such as Sheffield, have introduced automatic enrolment[1]. Furthermore, the national food strategy recommendations call for automatic enrolment in FSM. In March 2023, Harriet Harman asked the Secretary of State for Education (Nick Gibb) what discussions the DoE has had with the Department for Work and Pensions on introducing automatic enrolment for free school meals to eligible children. The secretary of state responded that there are no formal assessments concerning the number of pupils that would become eligible for FSM through automatic enrolment and no plans for automatic enrolment. He did indicate that FSM take-up was estimated to be 89% according to benefits data[2].
The Bread and Butter Thing (TBBT) is an affordable food club. It is not a food bank. It works with volunteers from 115 local community organisations across 23 local authorities located in the North of England to provide low cost, healthy food to people who are not in food crisis but are vulnerable to it. These are people who may be skipping meals or who are just about making ends meet. They may be struggling and stretched, but usually not destitute. Alongside the food, TBBT works with other organisations to help build people’s capability to live their best life by reducing barriers and improving their access to and utilisation of the resources they need. Unlike food banks, the food is not free, and the local volunteers come from the community of people who use the services.
According to the Food Standards Agency Food and You 2 survey (wave 6) conducted in the autumn of 2022, the number of people who use food clubs, sometimes also known as a food pantry or social supermarket in the UK, is larger than the number who use foodbanks. In England, about 4.8% of the total adult population, or about 2.23 million adults, used a pantry or food club between Autumn 2021 and Autumn 2022 (compared to 4.6% or 2.14 million foodbank users). These services operate in all regions of the UK. The largest single provider of such services is TBBT. In addition, there are at least 100 franchise branches within the Your Local Pantry network started by Stockport Homes and Church Action for Poverty, and Feeding Britain identifies 348 affordable food clubs within their network (although it is unclear what overlap there may be tween Feeding Britain and Your Local Pantry). It is likely that there are additional food clubs operating independently of these organisations. However, there is no clear data available for finding them. Only TBBT can directly communicate with service members because they work in partnership with local organisations rather than the franchise model used by other networks.
Despite the uptake of these services, relatively little is known about those who use them. The analysis presented is based on data from a survey conducted by TBBT, which has a membership of more than 72,000 households using their service. Survey details are as follows.
Total who opened survey text= 21,886
Total who answered survey =2917
Total who responded with a child or children in year 3 or above = 2671
I recently participated in a Fuse Research Event, giving the Keynote presentation on the importance of transitioning our food system and how the Food Ladders framework can support this. My talk starts at about 25 minutes into the recording.
FUSE half-day seminar
I discussed the current food insecurity situation, drawing on the Autumn 2022 Food and You 2 data. This data is published by the Food Standards Agency and is an official set of government statistics. I talked about how we have never had full food security and the reasons for this. I then introduced the Food Ladders framework and provided some comparisons between different approaches. I showed the statistics for food bank use versus pantry/food club/social supermarket use, as well as the details about national understanding. I concluded with some gaps in understanding that still need to be addressed. The final slide provides relevant links to other works I have produced on this topic.
In addition to my talk, others provided interesting research covering children, people with mental health issues, and what I would consider rung 2 interventions on the ladders. You can also see these presentations and download the slides from the links above.
GeoFoodie 
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