Food poverty: Households, food banks and free school meals

In 2023/24 there were 7.5 million people, or 11% of the UK population, in households experiencing food poverty, including 18% of children. For the same year, Trussell (previously the Trussell Trust), a charity and network of foodbanks, supplied 2.89 million 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 publication, in 2023/24, 7.5 million people (11%) in the UK were in food insecure households.

Among the 14.2 million people found to be in relative poverty after housing costs, 25% were in food insecure households, including 33% 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 2023/24, 2.8 million people in the UK lived in household which had used a food bank in the previous 12 months, a rate of 4%. This includes 8% of children, 4% of working-age adults, and around 1% of pensioners.

In 2024/25 Trussell supplied 2.89 million emergency food parcels, down slightly from 2023/24 when it supplied 3.13 million 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 April 2025, food inflation was 3.4%, but the long period of high food inflation affected households.

In March 2025, 66% of adults in Great Britain reported an increase in their cost of living compared with the month before, according to the ONS. Of these, 91% saw the price of their food shopping go up, and 40% 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 January 2025, 13.9% 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 655,000,000 people used a Trussell 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 are a statutory entitlement available to eligible pupils. Local authorities are responsible for providing free school meals.

In January 2025, there were around 2.2 million pupils known to be eligible for free school meals, representing 25.7% 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 2024, 43.6% of pupils eligible for free school meals achieved a standard pass in both English and Maths GCSE compared to 72.3% of pupils not eligible. This was an attainment gap 28.7 percentage points.