The German Food Bank System and Its Users—A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Although food banks are a well-known resource for low-income people struggling to meet their food needs, they have rarely been investigated on a large scale. This study aims to contribute to the actual debate about the potential and limitations of food banks to decrease the prevalence of food insecurity by providing a representative picture of the German food bank system and its users. Publicly accessible data were used to map residents, public welfare recipients, and food banks. In addition, a comprehensive survey was distributed to all 934 “Tafel” food banks. The results show that nearly all residents and welfare recipients have access to at least one food bank located in the districts in which they reside. Differences in the density of food banks exist between eastern and western Germany. Food banks provide mainly healthy fresh food, but they heavily rely on food donations from local retailers and on volunteer labor. Although changes in the number of user households by income seem to mirror trends in the number of welfare recipients, food bank users appear to represent only a fraction of the food-insecure population in Germany. Food banks might have the potential to improve users’ diet and food security, but they are not able to reach all food-insecure residents in Germany.

Food Insecurity and Hunger in Rich Countries—It Is Time for Action against Inequality

“…There is a key role for academia to provide the evidence base and independent voice to inform and evaluate policy and programs and to challenge existing paradigms and assumptions. The International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Special Issue on Addressing Food Insecurity in Developed Countries is a good example of how the research community can come together to provide evidence to guide policy and practice [66,67,68,69,70,71,72,73,74,75,76,77,78,79,80,81,82,83,84,85,86]. There are many opportunities for academics to partner with government, industry, and the third sector to translate research to practice to improve the lives of people rendered food insecure in rich nations.…”

Food is medicine: actions to integrate food and nutrition into healthcare

“…The food is medicine interventions reviewed in table 1, administered in or closely coordinated with healthcare systems, are often enhanced and more targeted versions of services provided in anti-hunger programmes (see supplementary table online). These might include Germany’s food bank system, which is entirely divorced from the healthcare system; universal school meals programmes (in Finland and other European countries); and services delivered through cash transfers conditioneal on receipt of certain healthcare services (such as those in Brazil and Mexico) or health diagnoses (in Canada) 1547484950…”

Impact of a smoking cessation program on smoking prevalence and food security among food pantry users – a study protocol for a pragmatic cluster randomised controlled trial

“…One of the most important strengths of this study is the stakeholder engagement within the food pantry setting. Over the last few years, food pantries in Germany have broadened their mandate from solely distributing food to establishing central meeting points where clients are able to drink coffee, eat snacks, and meet peers while waiting to receive their food [58]. As revealed by a previous study, the majority of users regularly visit a food pantry at least four times per month for more than 1 year [11].…”

“…A large number of clusters, and therefore participating food pantries, are needed to detect an effect. The focus of food pantries lies on the distribution of food and nearly all "Tafel" food banks and food pantries are driven by volunteers [58]. Although the coordinator of all food pantries will be involved in the recruitment and written invitations will be followed by personal invitations in the case of no response, the recruitment of 32 food pantries remains ambitious, in particular in times of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic [38].…”