First Food Aid Census in Southampton

Charities, Cafés, and community groups across Southampton participated in the first ever food aid census of all the food given out through food banks, soup runs, and community pantries. The purpose was to measure how many meals are served on a regular basis for a report being prepared by the Food Aid Network.

Duncan House, Southampton City Mission’s General Manager, said, ‘We are pleased that groups have been willing to join in with this initiative to assess the scale of food aid provided in the city. When volunteers are busy, it’s one more task to keep count of what goes out through the doors and to send us the results, so we really appreciate it. The snapshot also gives us an easy way to start capturing trends in future years as to whether the demand is rising or falling. We counted 17,387 meals being served across Southampton in the week of the census, leading us to estimate that some 900,000 meals are served by the Southampton food aid groups annually.’

The week-long census includes larger organisations like Southampton City Mission and the Big Difference along with other groups, community centres and projects serving those at risk of homelessness. Speaking from the Big Difference, Dr Sanjay Mall said, ‘With other partners, we distributed over 12 tonnes of food in the week of the census. Stopping to count how much food we’ve shared is very encouraging because we know there is much need during this cost-of-living crisis.’

The food census has been prompted by the Love Southampton project, which has been funded by a grant programme, Faith New Deal, from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities. Speaking from Love Southampton, Paul Woodman, commented, ‘We are fortunate to have organisations like Southampton City Mission and The Big Difference from Above Bar Church to harness the goodwill of businesses and community partners to meet the rising needs of people hit by rising living costs.’