Food banks and food aid

Food insecurity has been a growing problem in Glasgow, and much of the UK, for some time. Even before COVID-19 there was evidence of a growing reliance on emergency food aid provision, growing numbers of food banks and community food organisations providing free food, and growing demand for these services.

The Trussell Trust is a well-known provider of emergency food services across the UK, but there are many other emergency food and food bank services that exist to support people in crisis. However, the data from Trussell Trust alone, between 1 April to 30 September 2023, shows that they distributed 259,744 emergency food parcels from Scottish food banks, including almost 90,000 parcels for children. This is the most food parcels ever distributed in Scotland, including during the Covid pandemic, and a 30% increase compared to the same period the previous year (https://www.trusselltrust.org/what-we-do/scotland/).

 Data on the Trussell Trust is taken from the Trussell Trust website. The Trussell Trust statistics are a measure of volume – they show the number of people to whom The Trussell Trust foodbanks have given three days’ emergency food. These are not necessarily unique users. For example, if a family of three was referred to a foodbank twice in one year, this would count as six people on the system, because someone received three days’ emergency food six times. However, if a family of three were only referred to a foodbank once, this would count as three.

This page was last updated in September 2024.