The Source

Food is never just food. To mark Love British Food’s 25th anniversary, Love British Food and Future Countryside have commissioned a collection of essays exploring the role of food in Britain today. Bringing together diverse perspectives from across the food supply chain and beyond, the collection provides a snapshot of British food and society in 2026 – designed to inspire fresh thinking, worthwhile debate and positive action for the future. 

Let’s talk about waste: Is food waste the real cause of food hunger?

The UK’s food insecurity permacrisis epitomises the fault lines in our food system. In 2024, 14.1 million people (one in six households) went without or cut back on food because of lack of money. We cannot underestimate the scale of the food waste problem either. Every year over 6.4 million tonnes of edible food, valued at £21 billion, is classed as surplus.

For as long as we’ve heard about people needing food banks, there’ve been calls for redistributed food surplus to be channelled to the nation’s poorest. Redistribution charities and supermarkets have merged the objectives of reducing food waste and ‘fighting hunger’ for years. King Charles has said: ‘Food need is as real and urgent a problem as food waste - and if a way could be found to bridge the gap between them, then it would address two problems in one.’

But the idea of repurposing ‘leftover’ food for ‘left behind’ people has clouded our thinking. Over 15 years, food banks have distributed millions of emergency food parcels. More recently food pantries, social supermarkets, and affordable food clubs have joined a food aid labyrinth. Yet food insecurity levels remain stubbornly high.

The causes of hunger, and real solutions, have been glossed over in the interests of promoting an apparent ‘win-win’ solution. Meanwhile, despite the Herculean efforts of legions of volunteers, a food aid response to poverty has proved to be a ‘sticking plaster’ option. Emergency food parcels can only temporarily alleviate hunger often containing food that doesn’t meet households’ needs. Food aid volunteers are also frequently left to dispose of inedible supermarket food waste, adding to already overstretched workloads.

Thankfully, a strong ‘cash-first’ counternarrative driven by the anti-poverty sector has emerged. It identifies the root cause of food poverty as lack of income not food. Taking a ‘cash-first’ or income-focused approach to food insecurity would ultimately result in at least adequate social security payments and wages that match the cost of living. In the meantime, it’s vital to work collectively to ensure people can access cash payments when in crisis, social security entitlements, and any finance-boosting support at the earliest opportunity.

The Scottish Government championed a cash-first approach with their plan to end the need for food banks and the Department for Work and Pensions’ Crisis and Resilience Fund (CRF) guidance for English local authorities busts the long-running myth that people can’t be trusted with cash payments as crisis help. Recognising the need for wraparound support alongside cash-first crisis payments, the CRF guidance also requires local authorities to support people to build financial resilience through local community networks. Ensuring early intervention when people are facing money worries or falling into debt is long proven to be key to reducing financial precarity. Some food banks are transforming into community hubs providing information and advice to help people boost their incomes alongside other holistic services. Food may or may not have a role to play and isn’t a prerequisite for people to benefit from support.

Meanwhile, the Waste and Resources Programme (WRAP) aiming to reduce food waste at source is making progress and messaging from the UK-wide food surplus redistribution charity Felix is shifting in favour of decoupling the food waste and food poverty problems. However, waiting in the wings, the new National Programme to Redistribute Surplus Food aims to triple the redistribution of ‘unavoidable’ surplus food.

Organisations behind this plan have signed a joint covenant acknowledging that ‘redistributing more surplus food is not a systemic solution to poverty’ while the ‘expansion of surplus food redistribution must be accompanied by policies that tackle the root causes of poverty, hunger and hardship’. But concerns haven’t been quelled. What’s clearly missing from this set of principles is the assertion that a charitable food aid response to poverty should be temporary. At odds with the welcome disentanglement of the food waste and food poverty problems is a principle that refers to surplus food redistribution as ‘a positive intervention that improves people's lives through local charitable food aid providers’. Meanwhile, the accompanying ‘redistribution revolution’ campaign highlights that the ‘great quality food’ that’s going to waste is ‘enough to feed every child in the UK for a month’.

Vested interests are at play within a system that relies on over-production to enable consumer choice and profits. Perpetuating the notion that food waste can ‘fight hunger’ helps maintain the status quo while supermarkets keep their altruistic reputations. Yes, people are struggling to afford food now, but to avoid treading water, or taking a backward step, food surplus distribution charities, retailers, producers, anti-poverty charities, local food aid providers, governments, and the public need to be on the same page in terms of long-term objectives.

It’s key to envision a society where everyone has enough income to get by and community food venues are for people who chose to be there rather than have to be there. Unavoidable surplus food could be put to good use within vibrant community food landscapes as well as in hospitals, residential homes and public diners.

If surplus food is good enough for people, then we should all be eating it. Food waste is not the cause of food hunger, but its redistribution accompanied by false messaging risks cross-sector efforts to address food insecurity and poverty for good.