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date: 14 February 2025

Surplus Food and the Rise of Charitable Food Provisionlocked

Surplus Food and the Rise of Charitable Food Provisionlocked

  • Charlotte Spring, Charlotte SpringLaurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, Wilfrid Laurier University
  • Rebecca de SouzaRebecca de SouzaDepartment of Communication, San Diego State University
  • , and Kayleigh GarthwaiteKayleigh GarthwaiteDepartment of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology, University of Birmingham

Summary

Many wealthy but unequal countries have seen a significant expansion in systematized charitable food provision, usually in the form of food banks and food pantries. The use of food charity as a way to manage both food surplus and household food insecurity was pioneered in the United States at a time of cuts to cash-based welfare entitlements. It has expanded to Canada, Europe, Australia, and a growing number of middle-income countries, often in the wake of socio-ecological crisis including recession and pandemic, but also ideological shifts around effective and just solutions to poverty and inequality. While food charity is often presented as a “win-win” solution to food waste and hunger, it has been criticized from numerous perspectives that are explored in the article, including the argument that corporate-backed food charity in its currently expanding form masks structural causes and thus fails to resolve either problem, while offering a largely inadequate and undignified food offer to marginalized people. Alternative solutions include rights-based policies to ensure people’s access to basic needs, mutual aid in the face of systemic precarity, and movements for food sovereignty as means to address both ecological and social harms caused by existing food production and distribution systems.

Subjects

  • Food Politics and Policy
  • Food Justice and Sustainability

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