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Food banks in the UK

Food banks are charitable organisations that distribute food to people who do not have enough money to buy the food they need. They are often run by volunteers, faith groups, schools, and other organisations. Food banks sometimes offer other support, for example help with benefit applications or debt advice. This briefing only looks at the distribution of food.

In 2024/25, 4% of individuals in the UK lived in a household where a food bank had been used for food in the previous 12 months, according to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) survey data.

There has been a general trend of rising demand for food parcels in the last 10 years. Trussell (formerly Trussell Trust), an anti-poverty charity that runs a network of food banks across the UK, distributed around 1.1 million emergency food parcels in 2015. In 2025 this had increased to 2.6 million.

Source: Trussell, End of year stats

Organisations who run and coordinate food banks like Trussell and the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) say they intend food banks to be a temporary way to supply emergency food aid, not a long-term solution to household food insecurity.

How many food banks are there in the UK?

Trussell distributed parcels from 1,556 locations across the UK in 2025.

There are at least 1,172 additional independent food banks.

People using food banks

Trussell’s Hunger in the UK report in 2025 found that some groups of people in the UK are more likely to use food aid. In 2024:

• Disabled people made up 28% of the UK population and 74% of people referred to Trussell food banks.
• People who live in households with children made up 28% of the UK population and 36% of those referred to food banks.
• Families with three or more children were more likely to be referred to food banks. 10% of people referred to food banks said they had three or more children, compared to 4% of people in the UK living in such a household.
• 19% of people referred to a food bank were single parents, whereas single parents make up around 3% of UK households.

2.6 million food parcels were distributed by Trussell food banks in 2025. 912,000 of these went to children. The number of emergency food parcels given to people by Trussell has been increasing since 2006. There was a spike in 2020 during covid-19 lockdowns, followed by a decrease when the economy opened up in 2021. In 2022 and 2023 there have been record high numbers of parcels distributed, which Trussell says was due to the rising cost of living. Food parcel distribution has fallen in 2024 and 2025.