Food banks aren’t the solution to poverty – especially when businesses use them to dump food waste

At first glance the redistribution of surplus food to community groups seems like an obvious, undeniable good – a solution that reduces food waste and feeds those in need. A win-win scenario for everyone, right?

That’s why supermarkets, manufacturers, and other food businesses highlight their food donations as evidence of their commitment to social responsibility. It’s often used as a nice story in local newspapers or a way of racking up likes on Instagram.

But unfortunately the reality is much more complicated and problematic. This is laid bare in our new Feedback Global report ‘Used by: How businesses dump their waste on food charities‘ – based on the lived experience of staff and volunteers at food aid organisations up and down the country.

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All too often food aid workers find themselves not just feeding their communities but managing the damaged, expired or nutritionally inadequate food that is routinely dumped on them. Leaving them to bear the burden of sorting, repackaging and disposing of food that can’t be used, while businesses get out of having to include it in their food waste numbers.

This burden of managing food waste was flagged to us as a serious issue by a volunteer working in a food bank in Merseyside and our new data shows she’s far from alone. In fact, our research found 91% have had to discard donated food, with the most common reason the food was damaged or inedible. While 85% reported feeling frustrated, angry or sad when they received donated food items that they can’t use or redistribute.  

This buck-passing of food waste cannot continue. We need to see urgent action to tackle the significant problems with the UK’s food distribution model, including a whistleblowing mechanism for workers to report when bad quality food is repeatedly passed onto them and mandatory reporting of food waste for large and medium businesses. We also need to see commitment to a national target to halve waste by 2030 from farm to fork, which will also help spur innovation throughout the supply chain.

One of our respondents said: “I think it is wrong that supermarkets can record zero waste when actually we, as a food bank, are having to dispose of their waste.” Another commented: “I’m cross that the supermarket has not already checked this [food] – leaving it to us to dispose of it.”

The food aid workers also reported bizarre items being donated that are hard to incorporate into meals or didn’t provide nutritional value. This includes six turkeys frozen together, brandy-flavoured cream in the summer, 10kg of crème fraiche, tiny miso sachets and new experimental flavours of mayonnaise. One worker said they spent £375 on carpet cleaning after a donation of rotten bananas.  

These items, which workers bend over backwards to try and make work, should never have been donated. One of our projects Queen of Greens – which delivers affordable fruit and veg to more than 30 sites in Liverpool – is a case in point. People want accessible, budget-friendly food. They don’t want free leftovers that no one else does.

All this comes at a time when food aid usage is at a record high with more than three million food parcels distributed in 2023-2024. Food bank workers and volunteers go above and beyond every day to try to get decent food to people in need.

But our findings expose that food redistribution is neither the answer to food waste, nor to poverty. Businesses must take responsibility for the time and cost of disposing of their own food waste – rather than passing it on to volunteers and community organisations.  

The costs of all this fall not on the businesses creating the waste but on those already struggling to support people in food poverty. Redistributing food is not a solution to food insecurity – it is a symptom of a broken food system.

Food aid workers have spoken and made one thing clear: we need systemic change. Businesses need to be held accountable for their waste, government must ensure fair wages and social protections, and it’s high time to move beyond the short-term fix of redistribution to build a food system that works for everyone – and for the planet.

Carina Millstone is executive director at charity Feedback Global.

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