High levels of food insecurity in the UK reflect persistent and deepening poverty that emergency food provision alone cannot resolve. While food banks remain an important source of crisis support, growing demand raises important questions about how food aid should be delivered, how repeat food bank use should be understood, and what wider interventions are needed to address the underlying causes of deprivation.
This policy briefing draws on research conducted with six food bank providers in Nottingham, commissioned to explore the reasons for repeat food bank use and identify gaps in access to non-food support services. The findings reveal that the drivers of food bank use are complex and broadly similar for both repeat and one-off users, leading the researchers to conclude that repeat food bank use is not a useful metric for planning responses to food insecurity.
An analysis of repeat food bank use and development of an ‘opportunity pathways’ framework by Richard Machin, Eva Zemandl, and Charles Walker is available to read in the Journal of Poverty and Social Justice on Bristol University Press Digital.
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