Video: Income Inequality in the UK from @highpaycentre

Road to Warehouse from M53 Junction 10 Closed: Use Junction 9

We've just had a notification that the canal bridge on Stanney Mill Road will be closed from 15 to 22 May for more roadworks to be carried out.

If you are coming to the warehouse during this time, please use Junction 9 of the M53 (Town Centre/Boat Museum) and follow the diversion signs.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Guest Blog: Poor diet is the result of poverty not lack of education

By Lynne Kennedy, University of Chester

Cheaper than the real thing, but less healthy. David Wright, CC BY-NC-ND

Public health professionals are calling on the prime minister to do more to help the many families in the UK who cannot afford a decent diet.

Contrary to popular belief, people who are experiencing food poverty are not ignorant of what they should eat as part of a healthy diet or even where to buy affordable food. There is a wealth of research showing that the most important factor for having a healthy diet is access to affordable healthy food.

Money for food is the key flexible item in the budget of low income households. This means that the quantity and quality of food purchased and consumed by families is the first to suffer at times of financial hardship such as an unexpected bill or cut in work.

It is well documented that family members, particularly women, will go without food to ensure their children have enough. So food poverty is a gender inequality issue too.

Families on a low income are not able to afford enough fresh food, such as fruit and vegetables, which are required as part of a healthy diet. Families with limited incomes are more concerned about hunger and are likely to choose food that is filling over what is high in nutrients. Historical studies of household food purchasing patterns suggest that parents with restricted food budgets would choose food with higher satiety value such as a packet of biscuits at less than 50p, compared to a bag of apples at around £1, as a snack for their children.

In the long term this kind of decision may contribute to higher risk of malnutrition among socially deprived households. Plus, families that don’t eat much fresh food are also disadvantaged because they miss out on the protective benefits of a diet high in fresh fruit and vegetables against cardiovascular disease and certain cancers.

In the past decade, the strategy for promoting dietary change in the UK has largely focused on providing nutrition education. The emphasis was clearly placed on individual responsibility, relying on disseminating healthy eating advice as the main vehicle for change. Although dietary trends suggest improvements have been made, this is far from universal, with increasing health and nutritional inequalities between socio-economic groups.

Tackling food poverty requires more than just education. Initiatives that focus on nutrition education, or even on practical food skills, only paper over the cracks of the real issue, which is affordable food and a living wage. These small scale initiatives do not reach sufficient numbers of people and are therefore limited as part of the overall solution.

Research consistently demonstrates that low income households find it difficult to adopt healthy eating guidelines. Evidence shows that eating healthily is more expensive. Poor access to shops and inadequate storage and cooking facilities are also a factor for those on a low income – not lack of nutrition knowledge.

The ability to prepare food from raw ingredients – rather than relying on highly processed ready meals, which have less nutritional value than the fresh alternatives – however, does appear to be an important skill that many families have lost over the years. So many families are reliant upon buying processed foods and ready meals, which are not only typically higher in salt, sugar and fat content than fresh alternatives, but also more expensive to buy.

Successive governments in the UK have chosen to ignore the important role of structural factors. This includes access to shopping facilities within neighbourhoods, regulation of the nutritional quality of food in the cheaper ranges of products sold by major retailers and the lack of a food element within welfare benefits.

The rise of food banks reflects the failure in the current welfare system for those families or individuals whose wages haven’t risen along with food prices. They should only be used in emergency situations and certainly not relied upon. Some people have criticised the nutritional value of foods served at food banks and the lack of fresh products, but they are only meant to provide calorific intake to stave off hunger in emergency situations. Indeed, families are restricted in the number of times they can access the services.

Let’s hope the government pays heed to this need to address the structural causes of food poverty. Otherwise the UK may end up on a similar path to the US where food poverty is far more widespread.

Lynne Kennedy receives funding from NHS Public Health Wales, EU funding,

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Guest Blog: A living wage – not food aid – is answer to issue of food poverty

By Elizabeth Dowler, University of Warwick

Charitable food provision is growing, and more and more people are being fed by food banks and other initiatives. The press and TV have debated the legitimacy of such provision and highlighted the number of users. Clearly many people contribute food, time and other resources to sustain these worthy deeds.

But why are people going to food banks in the UK? And is charitable food the answer to what many describe as food poverty?

Charity and local action is certainly welcome, but by itself it is not enough. A group of 170 leading public health professionals, including me, has written an open letter to the Prime Minister, calling for further action as people are increasingly trapped between falling or stagnant wages and rising food prices.

Many others have recognised this problem. Just before Easter a group of leading Christian clergy and other faith leaders wrote to the main party leaders to challenge the moral position of a rich country with rising numbers unable to feed themselves adequately. At the same time, an All Party Parliamentary Group initiated an Inquiry into Food Poverty, chaired by the Bishop of Truro; its terms of reference go beyond “food banks”, and a call for written evidence will be supplemented by hearings in at least five parts of the country. This builds on growing concern among government agencies and NGOs such as Church Action on Poverty and Oxfam.

The story isn’t new, however: food poverty has existed in the UK for a long time – often hidden, but contributing to inequalities in health and wellbeing. And the bishops have form as well: in February they challenged the government to listen to people’s stories of struggling to manage in austerity, and to church experiences of trying to help.

At the same time, and after a long delay, Defra published research by myself, two other academics and the Food Ethics Council, on the use of food aid in the UK. We found the main reasons why people are increasingly asking for food help are “crises” in household income from loss of jobs or problems with social security benefits, often underpinned by on-going problems of low income, rising food and other costs, and increasing indebtedness. For many households, asking for food assistance is a strategy of last resort, and many more who need help do not ask for it.

Our research also showed that informal food aid can meet short-term needs, so long as the provision is sufficient, healthy and meets cultural needs. But it does not address the underlying causes of household food insecurity and thus does not solve the major problems – however well intentioned and organised.

In the storm of media commentary following these publications, I was surprised by how many seemed surprised at the findings: we have had economic austerity measures in the UK for at least four years, and the effects of cuts in jobs, wages and welfare are well documented.

Less widely understood perhaps are the current challenges to the global food system which, among other things, have led to higher food prices; Defra’s own data show that since 2000, average incomes of low-income households have risen by 22%, but food prices have gone up 33%. People on low incomes are caught in a pincer movement of impoverishment and malnourishment, but no-one seems to have responsibility to ensure people have enough money for daily food.

Our 2010 research for Defra showed that many even then were finding it much harder to afford the food they wanted, and that food costs were a serious source of stress. This was before any austerity measures, including all the changes to social security benefits; inevitably, things will be worse now.

Policy responses have tended to blame individual failings – “people do not know how to budget, shop and cook” – and to laud local-level food initiatives and charitable redistribution efforts to help people in increasing need. (Indeed, many local councils are diverting the emergency loan money to local food banks.)

These do a great job and the generosity of the workers and volunteers is not in doubt. But, as many who work in the voluntary sector know well, the efforts involved are too small and too piecemeal to meet systematic need – they can only manage stop-gap, emergency help – and the work is very hard to sustain, particularly for volunteers. It is no substitute for an accountable system of social security.

Indeed, abdicating responsibility to voluntary, local level responses, however careful and well meaning, contributes to depoliticising the problem and fails to tackle society-wide causes. It also puts blame on those who least deserve it. A look at the evidence from Europe and North America reveals that while local level solutions have their place, including potential for advocacy, they cannot address the real reasons many people go hungry.

For that we need more reliable indicators so that problems can be monitored systematically. We must acknowledge just how serious this is – that there are people who cannot afford to provide themselves and their families with a healthy diet. At the very least we need widespread adoption of the living wage and proper work contracts, so that people can have sustainable livelihoods, rather than charity.

We can all eat fairly and well in this rich country, but we need creative imagination and expression of communal values to do so. To perpetuate an inappropriate response is surely a collective moral failing.

Elizabeth Dowler has received funding via the University of Warwick from the Food Standards Agency, ESRC and Defra. She is an honorary member/trustee of the Food Ethics Council, a registered charity. She is a Public Health Nutritionist registered with the Association of Nutrition.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. 

Let's Keep Volunteering Voluntary @keepvolvol

West Cheshire Foodbank is supporting the Keep Volunteering Voluntary Campaign. 

We are proud of every person who volunteers with us and we know the value of volunteering. Volunteering means people independently choosing to give their time freely to help others and make the world a better place. Workfare schemes force unemployed people to carry out unpaid work or face benefit sanctions that can cause hardship and destitution.   We believe in keeping volunteering voluntary and will not participate in government workfare schemes.

Click here to find out more about the campaign.

Rebecca's Story

"We have just had a new baby - Rebecca is nearly 6 weeks old. 

Daddy was made redundant and is receiving JSA. Mum is awaiting maternity allowance but because of a delay in the tax office we will not be receiving a payment for as long as 8 weeks. Because of this we are experiencing significant hardship. We didn't expect for the process to take this long and we have exhausted all the financial options available. We are very grateful for the foodbank. Thank you."

Thank you so much to this family. We're really grateful you felt able to share this with us.