Food poverty: Households, food banks and free school meals

In 2022/23 there were 7.2 million people, or 11% of the UK population, in households experiencing food poverty, including 17% of children.

In 2022/23, the Trussell Trust, a charity and network of foodbanks, supplied the highest recorded number of three-day emergency food parcels.

This briefing provides statistics on food poverty in the UK, including food banks and free school meals.

What is food poverty?

There is no widely accepted definition of ‘food poverty’. However, a household can broadly be defined as experiencing food poverty or ‘household food insecurity’ if they cannot (or are uncertain about whether they can) acquire “an adequate quality or sufficient quantity of food in socially acceptable ways”.

According to the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) Households Below Average Income survey, in 2022/23, 7.2 million people (11%) in the UK were in food insecure households, an increase of 2.5 million people since 2021/22. Among the 11.3 million people found to be in relative poverty before housing costs, 22% were in food insecure households, including 30% of children. People in relative poverty live in a household with income less than 60% of the contemporary median income.

Food bank use in the UK

Food banks are run by charities and are intended as a temporary provision to supply emergency food.

The DWP published statistics on food bank use for the first time in March 2023.  In 2022/23, 2.3 million people in the UK lived in household which had used a food bank in the previous 12 months, a rate of 3%. This includes 6% of children, 3% of working-age adults, and around 1% of pensioners.

In 2023/24 the Trussell Trust supplied 3.12 million emergency food parcels, the highest number of parcels distributed by the network in a year.

How the rising cost of living affects food insecurity

Food prices have been rising since the second half of 2021. Food and non-alcoholic drink prices were 19.1% higher in the 12 months to March 2023, the highest since 1977. In July 2024, food inflation was 1.5%, but the long period of high food inflation effected households.

In July 2024, 45% of adults in Great Britain reported an increase in their cost of living compared with the month before according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Of these, 92% saw the price of their food shopping go up, and 37% had started spending less on essentials, including food.

The rising cost of living seems to be increasing household food insecurity. A YouGov survey by the Food Foundation, a food poverty charity, found that in June and July 2024, 13.6% of households in the UK were ‘food insecure’ (ate less or went a day without eating because they couldn’t access or afford food).

More than 655,000 people used a Trussell Trust food bank for the first time in 2023/24, in addition to the more than 760,000 first time users in 2022/23.

Free school meals in England

In England, free school meals (FSM) are a statutory entitlement available to eligible pupils. Local authorities are responsible for providing FSM.

In January 2024, there were around 2.1 million pupils known to be eligible for FSM, representing 24.6% of state funded pupils.  This eligibility rate has increased particularly sharply in the last few years (since 2018) and is the highest rate recorded since the current time series began in 2006.

This increase could be driven by many factors including macro-economic conditions, the coronavirus pandemic, and the continued effect of the transitional protections during the rollout of Universal Credit.

Free school meals and educational attainment

On average, pupils eligible for free school meals achieve lower GCSE attainment than other pupils. This is based on achieving a “standard pass” in English and maths GCSE. Government statistics show that in 2023, 43% of pupils eligible for FSM achieved a standard pass in both English and Maths GCSE compared to 72% of pupils not eligible. This was an attainment gap of around 29 percentage points.