A Slice of Bread and Butter
The voice of The Bread and Butter Thing - with stories from the frontline of the cost of living crisis from one of the UK's leading food charities.
A Slice of Bread and Butter
IMPACT SPECIAL Part 1: Revolutionising food support with Dr. Megan Blake
Welcome to the first edition of our Impact special two-part Slice of Bread and Butter podcast! This week, we are joined by our friend and all round accessible food expert, Dr. Megan Blake from the University of Sheffield. As part of our Impact launch, Megan joins us to unpack the differences between food banks and food clubs.
We dive into the fascinating generational shifts in attitudes toward food insecurity, which show that younger people are more open to using food banks and food clubs, while older generations often shy away due to stigma. These changing views are now shaping the landscape of food support and food security.
Welcome back to A Slice of Bread and Butter with Vicar Mark from the Bread and Butter Thing. We're a charity that delivers affordable food to the heart of deprived neighbourhoods, to help nourish communities and act as a catalyst for change.
Speaker 2:We provide access to a nutritious, affordable range of food, which means our members can save money on their shopping, feed the families as well as access other support to right in the heart of their communities.
Speaker 1:And this is where we share a slice of life with someone involved in bread and butter and hear about how they connect with us.
Speaker 2:And this week is part one of our discussion around the survey with Megan. That's Dr Megan Blake and she's in the School of Geography and Planning in the University of Sheffield.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she helped us to take a deep dive into the results of our annual survey. So we asked roughly 80,000 of our members just over 70 questions. Quite a few about all sorts. We discussed some of the initial findings with Megan, but there was so much we had to put it in two episodes.
Speaker 2:We did, and this time we focused on food banks and how food cubs compare, etc, and how they do or don't sit together.
Speaker 3:Let's have a listen and then we'll come back when we talk about food bank use, more than half of people who were aged 16 to 25 had used a food bank before they joined bread and butter. So we're looking at sort of 57 percent of the 16 to 25s. When you get to the over 75 percent, 78.2% had never used a food bank.
Speaker 2:Basically what you're saying. The older they are, the less likely they are to have used a food bank in the past. Yeah, have you got any background experience of that being seen as a statistic elsewhere?
Speaker 3:Not as a stat, but because we haven't been able to get this fine grain detail, and so this is nice, it's a new stat. But we do know that older people are less likely to respond to the food insecurity questions and their rates of use are lower compared to younger age cohorts.
Speaker 2:Has anybody wondered why yes?
Speaker 3:In fact, I'm working on a paper right now on that very story.
Speaker 3:It's a stigma thing on that very story. It's a stigma thing. Some people talk about it as pride. What we heard a lot in them is they reflect an awful lot and compare to their parents. So they talk about in the war it being really bad, despite the fact that actually, because of rationing, people had better diets than they had prior to that. They reflect back on to, even though they won't have ever experienced it, the poor houses you know where people had to go and live, and they refer to stories about having to shoot rabbits and forage and, rather than seeing that as kind of something that you might want to do in free food, they see it as something that very poor people did to get by. I've never heard anybody talk about shooting rabbits as one of their household food strategies, and some of that is very much because it's frowned upon and because the assumption is that people go to the supermarket, that that's normal.
Speaker 2:It's a fascinating thing, isn't it? It is a generational change, yeah, yeah yeah because I know friends that had parents and relatives that would do that yeah, yeah, but it's not a thing.
Speaker 3:Now you go buy your food, that's what's normal. There's also kind of this presumption about younger people. We hear a lot of older people talk about how younger people don't know how to manage their money, that they don't understand what poverty is really like. In fact, one older guy said there's no such thing as poverty in this country, which, of course, we know. The experiences that we might think of as being poverty do exist, and they exist for people in very real ways, but people don't tend to think of it as themselves, and particularly older people. They talk an awful lot about well, you just make, do you just get by? You just make it stretch or you skip. It's very internalized what you do when you struggle, and so going and getting help and support for food is something that they are reluctant to do if it feels like it's a charity situation.
Speaker 2:Are we saying that the younger you are, the less stigma there is to a food bank and the less you have this thought process of just making do?
Speaker 3:No, that's the perception, that's the story that older people tell about younger people to avoid engagement. At the same time, they talk about the food clubs as being the most fantastic thing in the whole world. So you know, that's an acceptable form of food support, but going to get free food from a food bank is not an acceptable form of food support to older people. I mean, younger people have had it much harder. Their earnings are going to be lower, they have debt, the prices for housing and so forth are increasing.
Speaker 3:So and this is from Food, and you Too younger people are more vulnerable to food insecurity, and it may be partly because they're willing to answer the questions truthfully or they can see themselves in the questions truthfully. So I think there's also something about when you get older. Skipping meals becomes something that happens. You don't notice you're hungry, whereas when you're younger and you've got a job that requires a lot of exercise or you're doing things that involve a lot of movement with your friends, you notice more. And so the questions I think that we ask are questions that are biased toward younger people, that older people don't recognize themselves in.
Speaker 2:Is it fair to say that food clubs reduce food bank usage, or is it more that, if you have a choice, people will prefer to use a food club as opposed to a food bank, or are the two not mutually exclusive?
Speaker 3:Again, there's an interesting age thing there. So more people reduce their food bank usage. That also has an age distribution. So younger people the bigger food bank group were more likely to reduce their food bank usage and as you go up in age it became less likely and in fact older people were more likely to increase their food bank usage. Here's what I think is going on.
Speaker 3:People go to the food clubs and they get engaged in the site and they hear from other people that they see as their friends, people. They know that they might be using food banks or that people who are in the space will say well, you know, it looks like you're really struggling. We have this food bank here. Let me give you some food support on top of what you're really struggling. We have this food bank here. Let me give you some food support on top of what you're getting from your food club. So it makes it acceptable for older people to get that extra help that they may need, whereas younger people they are absolutely moving away from Is it worth saying what you think is a food club's benefits.
Speaker 3:You get a dignified, socially acceptable way of accessing food that allows people to engage with their community, to express social values that are really important. Values like thrift and care, giving food to other people and people in the survey certainly said that but also environmental values. Oftentimes, people are encouraged to support the environment, but also environmental values. Oftentimes people are encouraged to support the environment. It matters to them, but they can't do it because it means spending money that they haven't got, whereas most of the people responded that they actually thought it was really important to prevent food from going to waste. So there's these kind of social values that people can express by using a food club, and there's a space for doing that, which doesn't happen in a food bank.
Speaker 1:Do you think that because people are more conscious about not having enough food, they become more conscious about then wasting that food that they've got?
Speaker 3:Nobody likes to waste food. For a lot of people when waste happens it happens by accident, but there are certainly strategies that people who are struggling financially, that's also a financial waste for them. For those who have a bit more stretch in their budget, it's not a big deal if you throw away a lettuce, but for people who that one pound, or however much the lettuce cost, that's a big proportion of their food budget and to throw that away is not expressing thrift or care. So yeah, it becomes more important when it also kind of spreads across ways that we associate or values we associate with food.
Speaker 1:I can't believe you mentioned lettuce. You've not heard Mark's rant about lettuces.
Speaker 2:She has triggered me. She has rant about lettuces. She has triggered me. She has because I I was just going to say who in the right mind is going to spend a quid on a lettuce anyway when your budget's stretched? Well, they're not going to no one, because there is nothing in it but water and no nutritional value and the reason why they're not going to is because people know that they go off.
Speaker 2:It's not a high value food item for them the only thing they're good for is measuring the term of a prime minister I couldn't say okay sorry, yes, so I digress. So basically we're saying we think we materially reduce the use of food banks. And that happens because when we go into an area people can see the value of a food club versus a food bank. And you could argue that if there were as many food clubs as food banks, there would be a massive reduction in food banks or usage of food banks.
Speaker 3:I should say yeah, I think those are two different things the amount that are present and the usage of them. I think you're right. And again, food and you too, Data.
Speaker 2:No, no, megan, just slow down, because you're on record. Could you just say that again?
Speaker 3:I think you're right. I mean, which would you rather do? Go to something where people are talking and chatting and having a good time, or go and feel like you're failing? You know that's a no brainer, really, from an enjoyment perspective or from a perspective of having a chat and structuring your week and the kind of surprise that happens for some people in terms of what's in their bags and the excitement of that. You know people talk about that sort of social interaction. We know from research that people who have strong social networks live better lives for longer, even if they have long-term health conditions. It's as important as quitting smoking in terms of the way it improves life. So the food clubs that I've seen and that I've visited certainly do that that people talk about. When they just talk to you, they talk about the food, but they really talk about the friends they've made, the ways that they get together, how it helps structure their lives and that's unprompted, yeah.
Speaker 1:And we got a lot of that through the survey. Lots of people saying that it was the only time they came out in the week and they made friends. So something around about 60% of people said that they'd made a friend while shopping with bread and butter, which is fantastic.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and 64% said they felt less alone. So you know, the fact that two thirds of people felt less alone or less isolated is really, I mean, that's a lot of people to feel that way, which, you know, makes you wonder what the you know in the general population of people who are struggling, that don't have access to food clubs, what their rates of feeling alone are. I mean, we already know there are fewer food clubs than there are food banks and yet more people in the national data are using food clubs than food banks.
Speaker 2:And that's fascinating right.
Speaker 3:That is fascinating.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think I've got a theory around that anyway, though, because for a food club to work, it has to be bigger from an infrastructure perspective than a food bank, because typically, the food clubs or food pantries that I know tend to move a ton of food a day, and I don't mean that in a generic mean, I mean literally one ton of food every day that that food club is open, whereas a food bank will see 20 to 50 people.
Speaker 3:Well, you can put it in a cupboard in a church hall, lock it up and not worry about it when you're not dealing with it, whereas when you're offering better food, there's a maintenance around that. That has to happen and for a very basic food bank, you know, if there's a list of stuff, there's tins of baked beans and tea and whatever's on that list, but it's not a really very healthy list. It's enough to keep you from starving, to curate and manage and assemble together all the things that are needed to distribute food that is full of vegetables and chilled food and then ambient food, the things that are needed to distribute food that is full of vegetables and chilled food and then ambient food, food that you can store shelf. To have that all in one space requires infrastructure and management that a food bank doesn't require. Food banks are easier to run. You can do it from your garden shed. Doing a food club requires more finesse and skill, but it's a better thing. But it's a better thing. Doing a food club requires more finesse and skill.
Speaker 2:But is a better thing. But is a better thing. I am guessing that you're on the same page to say that actually there ought to be a national coverage of food clubs, like there is food banks.
Speaker 3:Here's what I would say. I think it's a two-pronged attack. I think addressing the issue of food insecurity requires locally based interventions and it requires national shifts around some policy that exists nationally. I think we can't just leave it at either local or national. It has to be both of these things and probably different things happening at different points along that spectrum of scale. Food clubs allow people to feel more involved and that local interaction allows people to feel more involved in their community and allows them to build their capacity or their capabilities or their skill sets across a whole range of things that will help them to be resilient as a community. That national level policy doesn't do because it's topdown and because it tends to individualize. So if there were national-level policies that aimed to support and help coordinate local-level interventions like food clubs that build people's capabilities, that is what I think is needed.
Speaker 2:One of the other things that we look at as well is not only the age, but the type of people that come to food clubs. So we think over 50 percent of the members that come have somebody working in their family. There is an increasing number of people that are in work, that are really really struggling. And the other one that I've certainly come across more recently that we need to look at as well, Vic, is people that have got to pensionable age and realise they don't have a pension or it's not worth anything and really really don't know where to turn.
Speaker 1:And I wonder whether that partly explains the people in that age bracket that Megan was talking about before. Many of them haven't used a food bank, but of those that need to, their usage hasn't reduced, possibly because they're not getting the support. They've not got that financial support around them.
Speaker 3:I think one of the stories that we've been telling people for a very long time is that you have your best life when you're retired and you'll have all this money and the pension's going to be great, and I think 20 years ago they did. Well, probably they did. But you know, I think also people kind of thought that you'd be taken care of when you were old and that the state pension would be enough to live on.
Speaker 2:And it's not.
Speaker 3:And it's not. It's a bit like free school meals. People think that free school meals are available to households where they struggle to feed their families, but yet the threshold for free school meals is so unbelievably low. I mean, it's shocking then that so many kids are on them. You know, I think there's these myths that persist about a welfare state that's been long gone.
Speaker 2:A lot of the time when I hear people saying we need welfare reform, I find politically, that so many people are in an impossible position because nobody's going to vote for it, because actually the cost of it would be astronomical. So there's got to be a redesign and a rethink right, not just a welfare reform. It's just like we've got to look at how we actually introduce this support and care for everybody well, I think there's.
Speaker 3:It's a two-pronged attack, isn't it? On one end, we need to provide a safety net, but we need to provide a safety net that, but we need to provide a safety net that doesn't prop up industry. You can look to the history of the British system. One of the things that people thought, by giving people money, that it would be an excuse for them not to work. What was found is it was an excuse by people who pay wages not to pay high enough wages for people to live, because the state would fill in the difference. And there is evidence of that, which I think is really fascinating. But we also know from studies in the United States that, for example, snap payments Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program is what it stands for.
Speaker 3:People have a card. They can go to the supermarket and use it to buy food with it's income based, it's means tested, and there's nothing in that system that helps people to shift what they're eating, so they carry on buying the same kind of food. They do that thrift thing. They just buy more of the same kind of food. But the people who've made the most off of that are, of course, the food industry, because they haven't had to reduce the prices or they haven't had to pay people enough money. So if people were paid a decent wage that they could live on, then that reduces the need for some of this other stuff. But we also need these kind of other local knowledge sharing things, where people learn strategies for stretching their money further or ways in which to eat better and to be able to try things that they've never tried before, like a you know celeriac. Is that another vegetable?
Speaker 2:That's not another trigger, don't worry.
Speaker 3:Try courgette next time. Megan, Are you not a fan of courgette?
Speaker 2:Full of water again. That's all.
Speaker 3:Oh, but they make great spaghetti stuff. Bit of courgettes really thinly sliced up in Chinese noodles with a bit of soy sauce, it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:First things first. I have to say, and I think Megangan said it as well nobody's really looked at this, and it's whether it's interesting or not, but the very fact that there's a generational issue around food bank usage, and the older they are, the less inclined they are to use a food bank because they just, I don't know, does that mean generationally that food banks have normalised?
Speaker 2:Maybe you know because the younger generations food banks have always been there, so they're more socially accepted, whereas the older generations just in that wartime type culture of just getting by, just crack on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think it's one for Megan to do a bit of research on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think she's also fascinated about it, but one of the things she also said was that older people are less likely to talk about food insecurity and answer questions on food insecurity, so it's great that our data spread across all the generations yeah, yeah, that was really impressive something like 3.4 percent, or over 75, of our membership. I'll get you getting geeky now already 3.4%, not three or 4%.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, if I can remember it then, yeah, the other compelling thing that we say all the time, but it's lovely to see it in data the fact that food clubs, when you bring them into an area, reduce food bank usage.
Speaker 1:But what's also interesting and I'm sure we'll come back to that is that a lot of people that shop with the bread and butter thing have never used a food bank. So that's round about 60, 61%, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Not 61.2% then?
Speaker 1:Don't wind me up. So it's a lot though that haven't used a food bank, but still from the other data that we've got, still could have justified used a food bank. But still from the other data that we've got, still could have justified using a food bank. Really, when we think about some of the financial insight that they provided about how much money they do or don't have, yeah, I think you're absolutely right.
Speaker 2:It's twofold, isn't it that definitely there is a need for food clubs, but also there is a overusage, arguably, of food banks.
Speaker 1:And that might be because there's not a food club there, so people have to go to the food bank.
Speaker 2:Exactly. I strongly believe that a national coverage of food clubs to match the proliferation of food banks would materially reduce food bank usage.
Speaker 1:Yeah and gives people choice. Yeah, and gives them the dignity to be able to stretch the budgets and be able to feel like they can still afford to actually put food on the table for the family yeah, as part of the survey, we asked some questions which gave people the opportunity to just tell us what they thought, and I had the joy of reading nearly 10 000 of these one day and finding out what people were saying.
Speaker 2:I don't think I could read 10 000 in one day. I think out what people were saying. I don't think I could read 10,000 in one day. I think you're a really fast reader.
Speaker 1:I'm a speed reader, mark, you know this. Yeah, one of our members had said that we supported them during an exceptionally difficult time and they felt that bread and butter is one degree above the absolute poverty of accepting help from local food banks. Bread and butter allows cheaper food purchase with dignity.
Speaker 2:I think they've articulated what we try to describe a lot and what Megan would call food ladders right. So they've definitely talked about the stratifying, food insecurity and the bang on you know, we are so many degrees away from crisis and it really does help in that preventative space of stopping people going over the edge, and that's brilliant and it's a different type of food than people would expect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so big focus on chill and fruit and veg means that it feels quite different in terms of the food that people are getting. Another member said bread and butter reduced my anxiety and depression around food affordability. They reduced my skipping meals and food hoarding for a rainy day encouraged me to batch cook, both saving money and energy I guess, is people saving up for rainy days with a few things in the cupboards?
Speaker 1:yep or I'm going to eat a little bit less today so that I've got a little bit more tomorrow or the day that I need it. Yeah, I'm not going to open that tin of beans because I might need it next Thursday, but how challenging is that. That feels really stressful. Yeah, another member said, on weeks where money has been tight, bread and butter has allowed me to be able to feed my family better for more days than going to the supermarket and is less embarrassing than having to beg for a voucher at the food bank.
Speaker 2:This is the dignity play right. So when you compare and contrast, everybody talks about dignity with food clubs over food banks, but I think it also chimes as well with the enjoyable, the more social, it's, a warmer place and actually anyone from the community can dip in or out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and some people's usage of bread and butter has changed. So they joined because they wanted to stretch the budget. They wanted to eat more healthily, cheaper, great. But then some people, after a while of shopping with us, maybe they don't need us as much, but they're staying because it's less stressful to shop with us than it is to go with the supermarket. And that's exactly the point that you're making there, and we see that in our survey results. Small numbers, but it comes through in the data.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if we're going nuanced as well. I think one of the other fascinating things that Megan was talking about was that affordable food clubs like Bread and Butter give that capability of people that are on low budgets to be able to make a choice environmentally correct. So if they feel that they want to help reduce food waste or find something that's got a lower carbon footprint on the world, a lot of those products are really quite expensive, but if you can buy surplus food that would otherwise go to waste, that's another way of being able to express yourself in your commercial decisions, and these are things that you don't think about until you talk to people like Megan, right? Actually, it's yet another way of dignifying things, because people get to choose environmentally as well as from a budget perspective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or people may be choosing from a budget perspective, but if they felt that they were a bit embarrassed about that, they can still say I'm coming to help reduce food waste, and they've got options about what they want to tell the neighbours and the rest of the community. So that also gives them a bit more pride, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does. So what do you think about the thing that Megan said about the states where some of the welfare programs often don't help shift eating habits?
Speaker 1:It's really interesting, isn't it? Do you think that's because they're just giving out the wrong food? They're giving out the food that they think that people will want, or that's easy for them to get, and therefore it's calories, but it's not nutrition.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think so therefore, it's calories, but it's not nutrition. Yeah, yeah, I think so, because I think that we also make people wanting to eat more healthily, people having more fruit and veg. We make that so that they actually want that in their diet like they'd continue to want it. There's a huge proportion that say they'd buy more if they could afford it and access it locally absolutely, and we're definitely going to talk more about that in survey two, episode two.
Speaker 2:We'll just trail that there, yeah. And then I guess the other thing that we always do talk about is loneliness and isolation.
Speaker 1:Over two-thirds of our members saying that they feel less isolated and more connected to their communities yes and a real tiny number talking about when people's yes and a real tiny number talking about when people's purpose changed from shopping with us A real tiny number, it's in the hundreds, but I think it's brilliant want to stay shopping with us because they've made friends, nice, and they want to keep in touch with their friends. One member said I have made two good friends, which is amazing as my social life is nil. Every week I look forward to meeting them and hearing what they've been doing over the last week.
Speaker 2:He's got one more friend than I am. No, I think that's lovely, I do. I think we see this time and again, don't we? And I know what you mean about it being in the hundreds of comments et cetera. But we do see it so much, particularly with volunteers, right?
Speaker 1:Volunteers make, make friends, get to know their communities. Well, you've just led me on to my next one perfectly so. Another member said not only has it helped me and my family, but it's helped me make friends by allowing me to become a volunteer at one of the hubs I rest my case yeah I think it's fantastic.
Speaker 2:I think everybody's got to listen to this and I think government have got to listen to this.
Speaker 1:This is a compelling argument of how to address food insecurity yeah, the thing for me that is astounding is that 58% of our members have said that they've made friends. Since joining the bread and butter thing, I have never been to the supermarket and made a friend.
Speaker 2:I don't know whether you have Mark no, I I have never made a friend at a supermarket. I just want to get in and get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's one of my favourite games in the supermarket. Hide from the person that you know.
Speaker 2:I bet you're quite good at that as well.
Speaker 1:I'm really good at it yeah. Okay, I've got one final one, so it gets me out of the house. For an hour I've been in a not nice place with mental health issues and depression.
Speaker 2:This gives me something to look forward to. Well, I'm going to remind listeners to go back to listen to Dino then, because Dino is the same. Dino lives on his own. He's no family, he's no friends, apart from the people that he knows at bread and butter and for two hours a week yeah he comes along, he doesn't think he volunteers, but he actually does.
Speaker 2:It gets him out of the house and gives him purpose and it's great for that. Yeah, so so much to go at so many things about this. I think, overall, what we can see is obviously stretching budgets, obviously reducing food bank usage, which is a hugely positive impact on communities, and more to follow in episode two definitely.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to it. So if you'd like to know more about the bread and butter thing and what we get up to, you can find us at team TBBT on Instagram and Twitter, on LinkedIn or online at breadandbutterthingorg and if you have any feedback or thoughts on the podcast or the survey results for that matter, you can get in touch with us by email at podcast at breadandbutterthingorg lastly, we're always open to new members at all of our hubs.
Speaker 2:If you or someone you know would benefit from our affordable food scheme, you can find your nearest hub on the become a member pages of the website and please do all the things that podcasts ask you to do like us, subscribe, leave us a review, share us with your friends and chat about us on social. See you for part two next week. Yep, see you. Bye, thank you.
