By Bracken, Katherine and Lucy
Published: 17 February 2026
What is the problem?
By 2040, Britain is set to overtake Japan as one of the world’s largest economies (CEBR).
Yet, on a quiet street nearby, seven-year-old Naomi tugs at her mother’s sleeve as they join the queue outside a food bank. The line stretches down the pavement, past prams, work boots, and school bags. She looks up at the sign and asks quietly, “Mum, are we here because we don’t have any food?” Her mother forces a smile and squeezes her hand. “We’ll just get a few things and go home,” she says, hoping the words sound more certain than they feel. Just a few streets away, restaurant windows glow and supermarket shelves are full.
Yet for thousands of families like Naomi’s, full shelves do not mean full plates. Rising costs, insecure hours, and wages that fail to keep pace with prices have pushed working households into situations once thought consigned to history. A century ago, the hardship of the 1920s and the Great Depression saw men and women march from industrial towns to London, demanding work, food, and relief as soup kitchens became a visible symbol of economic failure. Today, once again, food bank queues stretch across British high streets. This is a wicked challenge, and one truth is clear: hunger is no longer hidden. It is the visible result of political and economic choices being felt at kitchen tables across the country.
But why is it a problem?
Ending hunger in the UK is a long-term social change issue. It goes far beyond the immediate problem of food access. While food banks, emergency support, and school meals play an important role, they do not address the underlying conditions that cause food insecurity in the first place. It goes far beyond the immediate problem of food access. While food banks, emergency support, and school meals play an important role, they do not address the underlying conditions that cause food insecurity in the first place (The Global FoodBanking Network).UK food insecurity is closely linked to, if not because of, precarious living conditions. Insecure work, rising living costs, welfare policy and wider social inequalities. For many households it’s become a normal part of life despite being in employment.
“International charity Action Against Hunger is for the first time ever working in the UK.” (Action Against Hunger, 2021)
Addressing hunger isn’t a quick fix; it will requires continuous changes to systems, policies and public attitudes, rather than short-term solutions, making this a deeply structural and long-term leadership challenge. Leadership here is not about authority, but about Advocacy, reframing hunger as a human rights issue, helping wider audiences, employers and decision-makers to understand what food insecurity actually looks like in everyday life, rather than treating it as an abstract policy problem.
Organising could focus on creating spaces where people with lived experience of hunger are able to come together, share their stories and help shape priorities collectively.
Community building could involve strengthening local networks of support, reducing stigma of food insecurity and encouraging solidarity, and ensuring services deliver to support needs in ways that preserve dignity. But TOGETHER, these approaches help harness human energy and appeal to shared humanity as a driver of social change.
How big is the problem?
The great depression, COVID-19 pandemic and countries at war are just some of the global issues that have contributed over time to the increasing issue of hunger and food insecurity in the UK, “despite the threat of those recent crises starting to fade, the shadow of this long-term picture hangs heavy over the UK.” (Trussell Trust, p.15, 2025).
Statistics of food poverty and insecurity are still increasing even though the rate of inflation has been falling. For example, in March 2023, food and non-alcoholic drinks had increased price by 19.1% since 2015, as the CPI, Provided by the ONS highlights. At the same time, “in 2023/24, 7.5 million people (11%) in the UK were in food insecure households.” (Francis-Devine, Malik and Foley, 2025). Then in 2025, the prices of food and non-alcoholic drinks decreased to 4.5% according to the CPI. But food insecurity rose to be experienced by 14.1 million people. 3.8 million of those?… under the age of 16! That’s over a quarter of the total of people in food poverty.
Something has to change. It’s not good enough. Something needs to be done to create some action against food poverty in the UK. If the government isn’t going to, it might be our turn as the public to do so.
But what can you do?
Let’s unite. Let’s march. Let’s stand together. Let’s protest against the ignorance of the long-term issue of hunger and food insecurity that this country has carried for far longer than it should have. Let’s resist the idea of formal leaders who can tell other people what to do and instead show what collective leadership looks like when ordinary people refuse to accept hunger as normal. The warning signs could not be clearer. This is not a distant crisis. It is here, in our towns, our schools, and on our high streets.
“Mum, are we here because we don’t have any food?”
If hunger is the result of political choices, then it can be ended by political will. And that will begin with us! One hundred years on, we face the same question: will we look away, or will we act? If they marched then, we can march now. 8th November 2026, we march together. Join the movement. Join the Facebook group. WhatsApp 07xxxxx123 to stand with us. No child should ever have to ask why there is no dinner on the table. No person should have to choose between heating and eating. In a country filled with fat pockets, the question is whether you can end hunger or whether you choose to.
References:
Action Against Hunger UK, 2021, ‘Action Against Hunger – UK Programs’. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKOxG9Umx-c&t=44s (Accessed: 6 February 2026).
Jamie Young, 2025, ‘The UK is on course to overtake Japan and become the world’s fifth-largest economy by the end of the next decade, according to new long-term projections from Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR)’. Available at: https://bmmagazine.co.uk/news/uk-fifth-largest-economy-2040-cebr-living-standards/ (Accessed: 17 February 2026)
Francis-Devine, Malik and Foley, 2025, ‘Food poverty: Households, food banks and free school meals’. Available at: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9209/CBP-9209.pdf (Accessed: 10 February 2026)
ONS, 2026, ‘CPI Annual Rate 01: Food and Non-alcoholic Beverages 2015=100’. Available at: https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices/timeseries/d7g8/mm23?referrer=search&searchTerm=d7g8 (Accessed: 6 February 2026).
The Global FoodBanking Network (2024) How food banks promote food Security | The Global FoodBanking Network. https://www.foodbanking.org/promoting-food-security/.
The Open University, 2025, ‘1 The purpose of activist leadership’. Available at: https://learn2.open.ac.uk/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=2523747§ion=3 (Accessed: 6 February 2026)
Trussell Trust, 2025, ‘Hunger in the UK’. Available at: https://cms.trussell.org.uk/sites/default/files/2025-11/hunger_in_the_uk_261125.pdf (Accessed: 6 February 2026)
Image References:
da6421c23fe48606c79d0bb8ad7986d5–soup-kitchen-homeless-soup-kitchen-volunteer.jpg (300×365)
https://titlesussex.co.uk/child-hunger-in-sussex-not-just-school-holidays/