What is the problem being addressed?
Among European countries, the UK registered a dramatic rise in food poverty: recent estimates suggest that around 3 million people live in households where someone has to skip some meals, while food insecurity has quadrupled, extending to 16% of the British population. This rise has been paralleled by the proliferation of food support providers all over the country as the number of adults and children resorting to food aid experienced an unprecedented growth. The COVID-19 crisis further confirmed the centrality of UK food charities in addressing financial precarity and food poverty, as increases in the number of food parcels distributed were reported from several charitable organizations. The Trussell Trust, the Salvation Army and the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), to name just a few well-known food aid networks, all reported a growth in the number of requests for food parcels, and during the early days of the first lockdown called for food and monetary donations, fearing that these would probably drop. For instance, IFAN food banks reported a 177% increase in the number of three-day emergency food parcels distributed in May 2020, comparing this with May 2019. Set against this backdrop, project “Hunger Bonds” studies how food support providers in the Greater Manchester Area have responded to the food poverty emergency spurred from the COVID19 crisis. In Greater Manchester alone, the GM Poverty Alliance identified more than 200 active food providers in 2019, and the number increased during the pandemic.
Why is it important for society?
Despite food charities have become central organizations for supporting people living in poverty in upper income countries all over the world, there is still a lack of knowledge on how the sector works, why certain types of food support provision are chosen instead of others (e.g. food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens), and how they have reacted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the UK, despite having become a sort of "parallel" or "shadow" welfare state, research has not fully depicted how the sector operates, and how food charities are simultanously in a situation of cooperation and competition. The reasearch unveils the inner working of the sector and by doing so it provides a theoretically-informed account that can be used to compare charitable food provision systems across Europe and beyond.
What are the overall objectives?
The research uses first-hand survey data, network data, dozens of interviews with food support providers directors, spokespersons, and stakeholder to understand how the food charity sector reorganized to face the crisis; In particular, the project:
1. Provides an in-depth account on the way food charities in Greater Manchester adapted to the COVID-19 crisis
2. Illustrates the inner working of the sector, the alliances and frictions between different food charities and their continuous struggle between competition and cooperation
3. Studies the web of influence, support, conflict and interdependence between the charities based in Greater Manchester
