Big society and food banks can get in the bin

‘Big Society’ Can Get in the Bin (and Food Banks While You’re There)

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

This morning, there’s an article in the Guardian about the government’s new scheme to push yet more public services out to charities, businesses and civil society, to help build stronger communities.

They want these groups to work together and provide support for issues such as loneliness, homelessness and online safety. Oh, and libraries. The problem is, Theresa darling, that people face these problems in the first place due to a lack of money personally or rescinded funding in the local community. Asking voluntary groups to provide service means even more people need to give up their precious spare time to help run facilities which are traditionally state funded.

It’s hard enough trying to earn money and have a personal life without being expected to work for free on the side. It’s just the further push of the Conservative agenda that seems to be predicated on leaving everything to other people…

are you privileged af then use it

Are You Privileged AF? OK, Then Use It

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Have you ever shoplifted food because you couldn’t afford to buy it?

Not because you were drunk and it seemed a giggle, or because you stole sweets from the corner shop when you were eleven years old to impress your friends, or because you were trying to fund a smack habit or because you went through a phase of life where stealing seemed like good entertainment.

Have you ever found yourself in the situation where the only remaining feasible option to stave off hunger remaining open to you, is taking food without paying for it, from a business?

That is the question that Matthew Thomson put to a room of ~150 academics, charity and food workers, many of whom have, or will be, studying food poverty.

The answer was 4 or 5.

The discussion was on ‘lived experience’ and ‘experts by experience’, which are the catchy academic monikers given to…

Is it Time to Make a Withdrawl from Food Banks

Is it Time to Make a Withdrawl from Food Banks?

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

I’m back in the world of the living, after two days solid of listening to, and talking about some incredible work at the first UK conference on food and poverty. The over-riding theme was food banks, there were research projects on food banks, lived experiences of food banks, food bank observations, food bank quantitative data, food bank volunteers and food bank organisers, it was a veritable orgy of food bank evidence.

On the last day, in her summing up, Rachel Loopstra reminded the audience that food poverty extends beyond food banks, in fact, food banks represent a thin slice of food poverty, yet they receive the most attention. We’d do well to make sure our academic lenses are trained more keenly on food poverty as a whole, rather than this singular, albeit high profile, avenue of emergency food aid.

Perhaps it’s the tendency for humans to assign pigeon-holes…

fucking food banks

Bloody Food Banks

Gavin Wren Food Opinion Pieces, Writing

Yes, bloody food banks.

They’re a blight on society. They go against everything that an egalitarian, democratic society stands for.

I’m privileged, relatively speaking. I’m part of the white, middle class bubble of the food world who postures on Twitter and posts about the joys of cooking with ingredients that require a trip to Waitrose or speciality food stores. I have not, yet, required the services of a food bank, although my mum mistakenly thought that my student status and part time employment meant I qualified to use one, bless her.

Ironically, I do visit a food bank, because I help at one. This triggered a chain of learning which is leading me down a path of sheer incredulity at the way British society has constructed these outposts of basic human survival.

Lets start with some facts…come and read more…