Breadline Challenge
FoodCycle’s Breadline Challenge is a campaign to spread awareness of rising
UK food poverty and raise vital funds for FoodCycle’s work across the country.
We are asking our supporters, volunteers, supporters and the general public
to live on a food and drink budget of £2.10 a day for a week in November (w/c
24th). Participants are asked to raise at least £50 for FoodCycle – which could
be through sponsorship or by donating the amount you would otherwise have
spent on food and drink that week.
FoodCycle is a national charity working in 20 locations to tackle food poverty,
social isolation, and food waste. Our volunteers use surplus food to create
nutritious three-course meals, served in a warm and welcoming environment
for people at risk of food poverty and social isolation.
FAQ
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Why £2.10? Where has this figure come from?
The figure of £2.10 comes from a report published by the Northern Housing
Consortium in December 2013, looking at the impact of welfare reform on a
random sample of their households.
This report is relevant to FoodCycle as we have 5 FoodCycle projects in the
areas represented by the Northern Housing Consortium, though we also know
that these issues are national. You can read the full report at
http://www.northernconsortium.org.uk/assets/Policy%20Documents/RLR%20Second%20Report.
pdf.
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What is ‘food poverty’ and who is affected?
Food poverty can be defined as the inability to obtain healthy affordable food.
This may be because of income, access, or knowledge. For instance, people
may lack shops in their area or have trouble reaching them. Other factors
influencing food access are the availability of healthy goods in local shops,
income, transport, fear of crime, knowledge about what constitutes a healthy
diet, and the skills necessary to create healthy meals.
Due to this complex mix of factors, people on low incomes generally have the
lowest intakes of fruit and vegetables and are far more likely to suffer from
diet-related diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity and coronary heart
disease. A 5% rise in food prices can result in a 20% reduction in living
standards for people on low-incomes and healthy food can often cost up to
50% more than filling but nutritionally poor alternatives.
Our Hubs work with groups at risk of food poverty including: older people,
people affected by mental health issues, people affected by homelessness,
low-income families, and asylum seekers and refugees.
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What is and isn’t included in the £2.10 for Breadline Challenge?
Your total food and drink budget is £2.10 a day (or £14.70 for a week). It is
entirely up to you whether you work out the proportional cost of ingredients
you use (e.g. 5p of cooking oil, 2p of pepper) or decide to buy everything from
scratch. Our team did this in different ways and yours can do so as well, or
you can establish your own guidelines if you are doing it as a group.
It is also up to you whether you include the transport costs necessary to
purchase the food. For example, if a £2 bus ticket is needed to get to a
cheaper supermarket, does it count as part of your £14.70 budget? Obviously
it is more realistic to count this but this will depend on your personal
circumstances.
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Isn’t this just ‘poverty tourism’?
We hope not – we know that we’re only doing this for a week, and we have a
light at the end of the tunnel. We know that thousands of people in the UK,
including many of those we work with at FoodCycle, don’t have this luxury.
For them, it isn’t a ‘challenge’, it’s their life, and it’s an ongoing struggle for
them to use that budget to feed themselves and their families with nutritious
food.
However, living on a small food and drink budget can be an eye-opening
experience for many and we think that, in a small way, it can help people to
understand what it’s like to not have enough. Rather than the question being
‘shall I buy a coffee on the way to work or spend it in the pub later?’ it turns
into ‘can I afford this banana?’ or ‘how many portions can I get out of this
chilli?’ We did this as a staff team last year and found our main challenges
included stress, the necessity of planning everything, not eating enough fresh
fruit and veg, low energy levels, unbalanced diets, and becoming bored with
repetitive meals. It made us think about how, if you live on only £2.10 for food
each day, an unexpected event like needing a boiler or fridge fixed or being
affected by welfare sanctions becomes something that means you don’t have
enough to eat at all. We have seen in the last few years how this has led to a
rapid rise in people needing to access food banks or being forced to borrow
money at obscene interest rates from payday loans companies.
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How is this different from Live Below the Line?
We have been in touch with the LBTL campaign but they specifically work on
international hunger and global poverty. We wanted to create something more
relevant to FoodCycle, the UK context of rising food poverty and the situation
that many of our guests find themselves in.
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What should be done?
We don’t have all the answers but we have seen rising problems with food
poverty over the past few years. It is a deep-rooted problem linked to a
number of other issues and there is no quick ‘fix’. However there are a
number of organisations working on research into the problems and coming
up with proposals that can help. Here are a few of them: Living Wage
Campaign, Oxfam, NEF, Trussell Trust, Church Action on Poverty, Citizens
Advice Bureau.
Guidelines
What worked well
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Tangibility of £2.10 - ‘price of a coffee or a sandwich’ worked well.
Regular blogposts to engage supporters with our challenge - our
shopping lists/dishes and experiences, especially the difficulties we
encountered.
Social media updates and regularly encouraging people to donate
Case studies and quotes from FoodCycle guests to illustrate how the
funds raised will help.
Raising funds as a group (i.e. one Virgin Money Giving page for your
team) has worked well for FoodCycle Central, Bristol and Manchester
in the past. That way there is greater momentum and an ever-rising
total that looks better.
It’s very important to have some sort of introductory paragraph to all
content making it clear what this is and why we’re doing it – feel free to
use the intro at the beginning of this document.
Please use the FAQ above for guidance on communicating about the
Breadline Challenge more widely – it is especially important to address
the issue of ‘poverty tourism’ in all communications.
We will promote your campaign and share social media
updates/blogposts throughout the week. Any queries please contact
Steven Hawkes on steven@foodcycle.org.uk or 020 7729 2775.