Food insecurity in the UK has intensified in the wake of COVID-19 and the cost-of-living crisis. The Food Foundation’s YouGov survey found that 17 per cent of UK households experienced moderate to severe food insecurity in June 2023, with 23.4 per cent of households with children experiencing food insecurity.
This in part can be attributed to increased food costs, with food inflation spiking in March 2023 at 19.2 per cent – the highest in 42 years, according to the Office for National Statistics. Multiple actors have emerged in response. Food banks have significantly grown over the past decade, with the Trussell Trust managing over 1,300 food banks alone.
Given this, understandable attention has turned to another actor, food retailers, to help support households with adequate and appropriate food for a healthy diet. Increased food prices are a factor in households being able to be food secure or not, and supermarkets are in a unique position as both retailers and employers. It has become increasingly common to see relationships between food charities and retailers forming in response to COVID-19. One major partnership is Asda’s three-year ‘Fight Hunger Create Change’ campaign which donated over £25m to FareShare and the Trussell Trust. These relationships at varying scales have become common across most major food retailers.
To explore supermarkets’ relationships with food charities and food insecurity relief, we engaged in a detailed programme of knowledge exchange with a large food retailer and held a workshop with food charity practitioners to find out how they worked with large supermarkets, what worked, what didn’t and what opportunities they saw for improvement.
We discovered three main issues, generalised to the food sector and not specific to this retailer and our workshop attendees, that shaped and sometimes challenged the working relationships between food retailers and food charities.
First are the mismatching priorities between supermarkets and food charities: When supermarkets and food charities form relationships, they need to ensure common goals. The food charity representatives we spoke to were very clear about the aims and objectives of their organisations – largely food insecurity and poverty alleviation. However, it became apparent that supermarkets often had multiple and quite different reasons for becoming involved in these projects. Many priorities centred around the redistribution of food to prevent it from becoming food waste, in some cases as a quest for the prestige of being a ‘zero-waste’ store. Superficially, this is potentially a ‘win-win’ scenario for all involved, as the dual objectives of addressing food insecurity and food waste are simultaneously achieved. However, where this approach is taken, our evidence points to neither objective being fully achieved. One charity, for example, regularly received a large volume of stale bread that could not be redistributed in such quantity or in a rapid timeframe, so the supermarket had merely passed on the onus of food waste disposal onto an organisation with fewer resources.
We recommend, for successful relationships, that parties must align their goals. Partly this requires a direct investigation into what each side wants from the relationship. At best, supermarkets may have a genuine, committed desire to eliminate food insecurity, acknowledging that their decisions and actions hold weight and therefore take their engagement with food charities seriously and with proper resourcing. At worst, food retailers may use these relationships as a corporate social responsibility strategy to enhance their brand rather than make a genuine difference in food insecurity. Likely for most, aims fall somewhere in between, but ensuring that there is at least an aligned goal within the partnership itself can ensure that such a goal is met in a way that benefits all parties.
Our second point concerns the quality of food charity – supermarket relationships: We heard from food charities that often their relationships with supermarkets were not optimal – and in some cases counterproductive – in helping reduce food insecurity. One charity received broken glass and flowers with their food donation from one supermarket but didn’t complain as they were worried the supermarket would sever the relationship. While this was an extreme example, it was clear that food charities wanted basic, fundamental changes to improve these relationships including a designated accessible contact person at the supermarket to coordinate and a two-way relationship. This requires the development of strong, consistent working relationships between appropriate food charities and supermarkets.
Our third point relates to what happens in supermarkets’ own businesses: Perhaps the largest, direct influence supermarkets can have on food insecurity is what happens in their own business. From what they pay farmers, how they structure their supply chain, to how they allocate work schedules and zero-hours contracts, supermarkets have control over what money goes into people’s pockets. We advocate that food retailers at all scales look inward and evaluate if there is any chance their own workers are food insecure. The Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union found in their 2023 survey that 60 per cent of food workers said their wages were not high enough to meet basic needs, with 45 per cent skipping meals to ensure others had enough to eat, and 17 per cent using food banks. Such tough scrutiny of supermarkets’ own contribution to the problem will potentially require radical changes. We recommend therefore that supermarkets apply their values and goals to their own businesses and supply chains, in order to limit their chances of contributing to the problem.
Throughout our research, it became clear that relationships between supermarkets and food charities have the potential to support efforts to reduce food insecurity. However, these relationships must function in a meaningful way. The food retail sector needs to recognise its direct role in the reduction of food insecurity, and take leadership in creating more effective, equal, appropriate partnerships that contribute genuinely to this aim rather than pay lip service to it.
Kelli Kennedy is a final year social policy PhD researcher in the School for Business and Society at the University of York. Her research interests include food insecurity, food charity and corporate relationships, as well as a just transition to net zero.
Carolyn Snell is a Professor of Social Policy in the School for Business and Society at the University of York. Her research focuses on the relationship between social policy, climate change, and the just transition to net zero. She is one of the founding members of the Social Policy Association’s Climate Justice Group.
Relationships between supermarkets and food charities in reducing food insecurity: lessons learned by Kelli Kennedy and Carolyn Snell for Voluntary Sector Review is available on Bristol University Press Digital here.
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