The Project

The most striking feature to emerge in the aftermath of the 2007 banking and economic crisis has been the substantial increase in the number of families suffering from food deprivation. 

Among European countries, the UK registered a dramatic rise: recent estimates suggest that around 3 million people live in households where someone has to skip some meals, while food insecurity has quadrupled, extending to 16% of the British population. 

This rise has been paralleled by the proliferation of food support providers all over the country as the number of adults and children resorting to food charities experienced an unprecedented growth. The COVID-19 crisis further confirmed the centrality of UK food charities in addressing financial precarity and food poverty, as increases in the number of food parcels distributed were reported from several charitable organizations. 

The Trussell Trust, the Salvation Army and the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), to name just a few well-known food aid networks, all reported a growth in the number of requests for food parcels, and during the early days of the first lockdown called for food and monetary donations, fearing that these would probably drop. 

For instance, IFAN food banks reported a 177% increase in the number of three-day emergency food parcels distributed in May 2020, comparing this with May 2019. 

Set against this backdrop, project “Hunger Bonds” studies how food support providers in the Greater Manchester Area have responded to the food poverty emergency spurred from the COVID19 crisis. 

In Greater Manchester alone, the GM Poverty Alliance identified more than 200 active food providers in 2019, and the number increased during the past months. 

Using first-hand survey data, dozens of interviews with food support providers directors, spokespersons, and stakeholder, and mutual recognition network data, the project aims to understand how the food charity sector reorganized to face the crisis, and to depict webs of influence, support, conflict, and interdependence between the different organizations working in the sector.