As concerns grow over food cost inflation warnings before the year is out, those behind the scenes of Britain’s food banks fear what’s next for those on the breadline
After a fresh wave of food price inflation threatens to push vulnerable families over the brink, anti-poverty campaigners are calling on the government to expand its NHS Healthy Start scheme to prevent widespread child hunger.
After a fourth heatwave and a prolonged drought devastating harvests across the country, experts warn that low-income households – already struggling during the long summer holidays – face further spikes in the cost of basic fruits and vegetables.
Now Andrew Forsey, OBE, National Director of Feeding Britain, says the government must draw upon its “all-too-secret weapon” Healthy Start, to fend off the worst of what’s to come.
Administered by the NHS, the scheme provides eligible low-income families with at least £4.65 per week towards the cost of fruit, vegetables, milk, and pulses, with this allowance doubled for children under one.
However, Andrew warns that this safety net is underused and failing to keep pace with soaring costs. “The sad truth is, even on a good day, you have between a quarter and a third of all eligible families not signed up for the Healthy Start allowance, so they’re missing out on that vital help,” he said.
“Given that families find it hard enough to access and afford a good range of vegetables for a healthy diet, any increase in the cost or restrictions in availability will make it even harder for poorer families. That’s clearly a concern.
“And then if we look at the actual real-terms value of that weekly allowance, it is worth less today than it was 20 years ago. Depending on what, whether it’s general inflation or food inflation, you use as your yardstick, it’s worth around a fifth less today than it was five years ago.”
The call to expand Healthy Start comes alongside new research from the Education Policy Institute (EPI), which found that almost a quarter (24 per cent) of UK families with children under five are now experiencing food poverty – skipping meals, eating less, or losing weight because they can’t afford food.
While progress has been made for school-age children, including the upcoming extension of free school meals for Universal Credit recipients, support for toddlers and infants remains inconsistent.
Recent data from The Food Foundation shows that 65% of food-insecure households had bought less fruit over the past month, while 55% bought less vegetables.
It’s at this time of year that many parents caring for children over the long summer holidays are left struggling to cover gaps usually filled by free school meals.
Nationally, 6.5 million adults and 2.2 million children currently live in food-insecure households, with nine per cent needing support in the past six months, the most common being food banks.
Campaigners warn that the crisis will deepen as the ongoing drought, coupled with the scorching heatwaves, wreaks havoc on British agriculture.
It’s had a severe impact with woeful salad crops, early cereal harvests and broccoli yield, while there’s also been drops in milk production from cows struggling with heat stress.
As a country currently largely reliant on imports, the UK has also felt the economic aftershock of fierce wildfires in the continent, which have affected the production of everything from olives to wheat.
According to recent industry reports, wholesale prices have spiked dramatically, with the tomatoes up 60 per cent, while iceberg lettuce has climbed by 90 per cent and potatoes by over 40 per cent.
Unfortunately, there could be even greater challenges ahead. The Bank of England forecasts that food price inflation will rise to 3.5% before the end of the year.
While the impoverishing effects of climate change are well underway and can already be felt at the checkouts, think tank The Autonomy Institute warns that climate disruption could push the price of fruit and veg, turning produce into an unaffordable luxury.
It predicts that heatwaves could add 11% to the current prices of the top 20 fruit and veg items in the UK by the year 2035, rising again by a staggering 68% by 2050 “under a high emissions scenario”, when taking into account normal inflation rates.
On the grounds of climate change alone, the price of tropical favourites such as melons, oranges, bananas, easy peelers and grapes could rise by 12 per cent to 14 per cent by 2035 and 80 per cent to 93 per cent by 2050. When taking all these figures into account, it’s estimated that, by 2050, a basket of fruit and veg could be 170 per cent more expensive than current costs.
As checkout prices rise, charities are now calling upon the government to protect those most vulnerable before the pangs of further inflation set in.
Rising living costs mean that households that previously donated to food banks are now cutting back, leaving charities struggling with depleted stocks just as demand surges. Andrew and his team have noted a notable decrease in donations to food banks during the recent heatwaves, a trend he partly attributes to working-class households that were previously able to donate, now struggling to cover their own food needs on top of other everyday bills.
According to Andrew: “It’s that one part of their weekly routine they’ve had to sacrifice, namely that giving of either food or money to their local food bank.” He continued: “On the whole, we’re seeing reductions in the amounts of donated goods from the public to food banks, while the need for food banks remains still unacceptably high. So food banks are struggling to square that circle of reduced donations on the one hand, but stubbornly high demand on the other.”
Matt Stallard, chair of trustees at Manchester Central Foodbank, told the Mirror: “We currently support about 16,000 people a year. When we were coming out of the pandemic, we were supporting about 8,000 people a year.
“So, we’ve seen that double since the pandemic, with the cost-of-living challenges that have happened, layer upon layer across these last few years. Any additional pressures on the food supply or fuel are going to push the cost of living up further. That is undoubtedly a concern for us.
“If everyone is having to ration, they aren’t going to donate as much. If we’re scrambling with everyone else to get food, obviously, it’s the most in-need people who will suffer the most.”
Sabine Goodwin, Director of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), agreed that emergency food aid can’t be a permanent solution.
She said: “A charitable food aid response to poverty has proved itself to be ineffective at reducing food insecurity while climate change has been the elephant in the room for far too long.”
“What’s needed are sustainable solutions to both problems, ensuring everyone in our society has enough money to not only afford the bare essentials but to live well.”
Andrew continued: “My overriding concern is for the ability of poorer households to access and afford the food they need for a decent life. And clearly, some of the global trends we’re seeing at the moment pose a threat to those households’ ability to access and afford the food they need.
“So that’s why we need to look at initiatives such as the national endeavour to end avoidable food waste in the UK, which should see the trebling of the amount of surplus goods that flow from the farm gate into communities as an important policy.”
Meanwhile, going forward, Matt hopes to see a “properly joined-up, funded and long-term vision for anti-poverty strategies”. Over in Manchester, which, despite its glossy image of growth, has a child poverty rate of 43.6 per cent, Matt and other anti-poverty campaigners are working to pursue community-led initiatives to put an end to food banks for good.
This, for example, includes replacing food banks with more “dignified” social supermarkets, led by the “local community that can also hook into other kinds of support”. Going forward, Matt is calling upon the government to ensure anti-poverty charities and food provision charities have access to food.
“But also the supermarkets. We buy wholesale from supermarkets and wholesale suppliers, as well as using donated cash, and having food donated. For us to keep maintaining some kind of service, even if it were kind of limited or reduced, we’d need to still get access to the wholesalers and retailers to actually buy the food. So if there are limits or if it’s harder for us to actually order the food because they’re prioritising their own shops, for example, we all will suffer.”
He added: “If there was some way to ensure that anti-poverty charities, food distribution charities could secure the food that they need, I think that would obviously help us do our job better.
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