What would it take for a society to no longer need food banks?

This is the question at the heart of Heather Buckingham’s new book, A Taste for Change: How to build a food bank free future. Drawing on personal stories and statistical data from across and beyond Trussell's community of food banks, this book explores the complex issues behind food insecurity in the UK.

Heather, Social Change Advisor at Trussell and Visiting Lecturer at Bayes Centre for Charity Effectiveness, will join us this October to celebrate the release of the book and explore some of the questions it poses with a cross-sector panel.

From Advisor to Author

Heather’s career began in academic research before moving into the charity sector around ten years ago. Today, her work at Trussell, a charity that supports around 1,400food banks across the UK, is focussed on reducing the need for the emergency food they provide.

It was through this work that the idea for “A Taste for Change” emerged. “We were and still are doing a lot as an organisation to get our voice hear about some of the specific policy changes, we think are needed, but I felt there was an opportunity to do more to get people thinking, in broader terms, about the kind of society we need to become if we are to end the need for food banks”

For Heather, this is about building a society in which everyone can afford the essentials. But this isn’t just an ambitious goal. It’s also one that involves grappling with considerable complexity – something that the soundbites that make up short news interviews and social media posts don’t lend themselves to capturing well. Writing a book seemed the ideal way to explore the issue in greater depth, bringing together the different factors that drive food insecurity and asking what change might look like.

A challenge that crosses sectors

One of the central ideas behind the book is that ending the need for food banks in the UK is not a job for one organisation, one sector or one part of society.
It requires different organisations, groups and individuals to understand their own role and how their actions connect with those of others.

Business

Through creating and sustaining accessible jobs, businesses have a crucial part to play in ensuring everyone can afford the essentials. While levels of pay are an important part of the picture, so too are factors like flexible working and having predictable and sufficient hours of work. A Taste for Change shows that whereas higher paid employees are often able to balance work and family life by working flexibly, many lower paid employees have to cut back on working hours to achieve the same effect, reducing their incomes in ways that make it hard, or even impossible, to make ends meet.

Government

A key area in which the book argues that the state can make a difference is through the workings of our social security system – including taking steps to align the level at which Universal Credit is paid with the actual costs of the essentials, as well as improving people’s experience of engaging with this system so that it treats people with dignity and sets them up well for entering or re-entering employment, where this is feasible.

Community

Relationships and connections matter. Having insufficient resources to afford the essentials can increase social isolation, because so many of the ways we interact with one another cost money. But social isolation can also be a contributor to food bank need – both through its negative impacts on physical and mental health, and because it means people are less likely to find out and access about the support available to them until they’ve already reached crisis point. Local associations, community groups, faith organisations and other networks can play a vital part in ensuring that everyone has somewhere they can go where they feel known and supported. They can also help people find and navigate support that can sometimes be difficult to access.

None of these areas exists in isolation.

Although government hold some of the most impactful levers for change when it comes to ending the need for food banks, businesses, communities, charities and individuals all have a part to play too.

A Taste for Change encourages readers to think about their own spheres of influence – whether through their work, leisure time, or volunteering – and ask what bricks they might lay to help build a food bank free future.

These are not questions with simple answers, but they are questions worth asking if we want to change the conditions that create the need for food banks.

Join us for the launch

We’re delighted to be hosting the book launch at Bayes Business School this October. During this free event, Heather will share some key ideas from the book, before joining a cross-sector panel to discuss how we can build a food bank free future together.

The panel brings together experts from the charity sector, business, politics and lived experience, creating an opportunity to consider the issue from different perspectives and explore how these backgrounds connect.

●Wednesday 14 October 2026, 18:30
●Bunhill Row

Book your place and join the conversation. Register now