Quick Bites: They Know We're Here, But They Don't See Us

Welcome to the Food Foundation's Quick Bites, our series of thoughts and snap analysis news events. You can see our webinars on our Food Foundation YouTube channel and now on our award winning podcast. I'm Shona Galdia, I work on policy and advocacy at the Food Foundation and today I'm going to be talking about an event we held this week in Parliament that was with retailers and MPs that was calling for action to tackle this cost of living crisis. So I think as we all know the situation with the cost of living crisis just seems to be going from bad to worse really. We now know that 18% of households are feed insecure and that increases to 25% in households with children. Those numbers have doubled over the course of the past year and have just really reached these kind of unthinkable levels at this point. And on top of that food prices just keep continuing to rise months on months and the latest data from the government shows that those food prices have gone up 19% over the course of the past year. And the Food Foundation has also been tracking a kind of basic basket of food that's a kind of reflective of how much a weekly shop has gone up for families. And that's gone up 25% over the course of the past year and that's really felt by everyone but also especially people who are on low incomes. So at the Food Foundation we're all about solutions and trying to make evidence based recommendations that are actually going to make an improvement for people on the ground and make a difference to people's lives. And so that's why we wanted to host this event in Parliament and so we hosted this reception in the House of Commons that was in partnership with which. The event was sponsored by Paul At Hamilton who's a really amazing labour and P for Birmingham and Peter Aldo who is conservative and P for Waveney. So it was really great to have that cross party support for trying to find solutions to these problems. So we wanted to show a film that we've made that was really aiming to try and bring to life these issues and it tells this really powerful story from this mother's perspective about the struggles of trying to afford the food she needs for her family. It's just this heartbreaking story around a family struggling to afford the food they need and you know it's also just not an unusual story. The mum and her name is Melissa and her experience is a lot of millions of people growing through right now. And we wanted to show that to MPs and to supermarkets and also provide them with recommendations on what they can be doing and the action that they can be taken. So the families like the one highlighted in that film don't have to go through those awful experiences and provide a solution for them that is going to help them put food on the table for their children. The film had such a powerful impact on everyone in the room. You know everyone was completely silent and fixated on the film while it was on and then there was, I mean you could have heard a pin drop at the end of it. Everyone was completely stunned into silence and I think you know when people do hear these stories it really does hit home for them. And they really do understand the struggles that people are facing and understand that something needs to be done about this. You know people can't just be left to struggle like this and so that's why we need to see. We need to see government stepping up and doing what they can to help people struggling at the moment. The film is called, they know we're here but they don't see us and I think that you know that's how lots of people are feeling at the moment. They've just been left to struggle with these issues that are really beyond their control and I think that was a really important message for the MPs and the retailers in the room to hear at the event because you know they have the power to do something about this and they can help people like Melissa who are struggling. And it's you know it's not a hope for situation. There are things that can be done and we've tried to set out really clear recommendations for retailers and government on how they can help tackle this issue. And I think what we really need to see is them stepping up and starting to do some of these things. So for retailers we have developed a roadmap of what supermarkets can be doing to help families eat well and make sure they don't have to trade down to less healthy options to save money. And this is called our kids food guarantee and it's a list of actions that supermarkets can be taking. And we know these are things that customers want and could make a really big difference to them and they're all things that are you know perfectly feasible for supermarkets to be doing so we really need them to take action and make those changes to make that food affordable. And you know government has a critical role to play as well. It's not just about supermarkets and so there's several things that government can be doing and one of those is expanding and strengthening nutritional safety net schemes such as free school meals and healthy start so you know we know there are 800,000 children living in poverty who aren't eligible for free school meals and you know that's just ridiculous because they're obviously in need of that scheme and in need of that support and so you know it's a no brain of that needs to be expanded. We've then got the healthy start scheme that provides payments to low income families to buy fruit and veg and milk. But people who are eligible for it aren't signed up to it largely because they don't know about it and so government really need to make sure that everyone who is eligible for that is is actually getting the support that they should. The other area where government need to be taking action is they need to decide which government department is actually responsible for tackling this problem and nominate a minister to lead on that. There's just a lack of leadership on this at the moment and departments passing the back from one other and you know someone needs to step up and really take responsibility for tackling these issues. So if you want to find out more you can go to the Food Foundation website and I really encourage you to watch the film that I was talking about. It's such a powerful and moving film and you can find that on the homepage of our website and you can also see all the areas that we've highlighted where supermarkets and government needs to be doing more and you know please share that around all your friends and family and encourage them to support it as well. Thanks for listening. [Music] [Music] [Music]