Schools and food charity in England

Abstract

This paper critically examines the development of food charity in schools in England. Growing numbers of schools, often in partnership with charities and businesses, are directly providing food to parents who are struggling to feed their families. This paper analyses how and why this is happening and its broader significance. The growth of food charity in schools is explained through a mixture of a retreating welfare state, an ongoing cost of living crisis, the continued diffusion of charitable food aid as a socially accepted response to poverty and hunger in the United Kingdom, and schools having to adopt increasing responsibility for making sure that children's basic needs are being met. Drawing on semi-structured interview data gathered from school staff, this paper highlights how schools are becoming a new frontier for charitable food aid.