Advertisement
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL: HALF PRICE Big Issue magazine subscription
SUBSCRIBE
Activism

Eat Out To Really Help Out wants you to use discount to support foodbanks

The grassroots campaign is cheekily tweaking Rishi Sunak’s new initiative to tackle rising food poverty during Covid-19

Eat Out To Really Help Out credit Poppy Design Studio https://poppydesignstudio.com

Chancellor Rishi Sunak’s discounted Eat Out To Help Out scheme launched this week offering diners a 50 per cent discount on restaurant meals in a bid to boost the badly-hit hospitality sector.

But now food poverty campaigners are asking those who can afford it to pass on the discount to help people in poverty going hungry during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The cheekily titled grassroots campaign Eat Out To Really Help Out is leading the charge. Fundraiser Felicity Jones quickly launched the online campaign after finding Sunak’s offer to be in bad taste.

“It was a niggle that didn’t go away in the week leading up to the launch of the Eat Out To Help Out scheme,” said Felicity, who works primarily in international development and is also set to launch consultancy Thinking Philanthropy and social enterprise Empowering Charities soon.

Felicity Jones Eat Out To Really Help Out
Felicity Jones Eat Out to Really Help Out
Felicity Jones was moved to start her Eat Out To Really Help Out campaign after seeing disconnect between the government's scheme and the plight of families struggling to stave off hunger

“I read two articles in a row: one urging to eat out and make the most of this undirected discount and the other was about the increasing entrenched food poverty.

“Food poverty had a lot of coverage over the summer thanks to Marcus Rashford but I felt that attention had gone away while the problem hasn’t.

Advertisement
Advertisement

“I absorbed that as a normal person and thought this ridiculous. I live in Lancaster, three miles away from one of the country’s most deprived areas in Morecambe, and I was thinking how would that make me feel if I was sitting in Morecambe and having to get my essentials from a foodbank? I felt like there was a complete disconnect there.”

Inspired by previous Age UK campaigns urging wealthy pensioners to donate their winter heating allowance to those who need it, Felicity wants her campaign to see people band together to help the poorest as well as raise awareness of the country’s continued reliance on foodbanks. The latter has been especially true during the Covid-19 lockdown as the economic impact has started to bite.

Sunak’s Eat Out To Help Out initiative is aimed at boosting the economy and getting the hospitality sector moving again – this week 72,000 individual restaurants took part with data from retail analyst Springboard showing a 30 per cent rise in trade on Monday versus the same time the week before.

But as even discounted meals out don’t help those who have seen their incomes slashed to virtually nothing in the Covid-19 fallout.

“Me and my family went out for a meal on Monday and got the discount and, thankfully, we didn’t need it so we decided to make some good out of that money and use it in ways that were not intended but are more important,” Felicity added.

“I want to get that idea out into the ether and get people to think in the context of what is happening before our eyes. I don’t understand why people aren’t shouting from the rooftops about entrenched poverty and why foodbanks should be pop-ups for emergencies and not permanent features of our society.”

Advertisement

Eat Out To Really Help Out has been welcomed by the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN), who support more than 900 foodbanks.

IFAN research has laid bare the huge increase in demand for foodbanks during the Covid-19 pandemic. The number of three-day emergency food parcels given out by independent foodbanks grew by 177 per cent between May 2019 and May 2020. That number had also nearly trebled between February and May this year.

Sabine Goodwin, coordinator of the IFAN and a Big Issue Changemaker, said: “The Eat Out To Really Help Out campaign is raising welcome awareness of the insensitivity of the Chancellor’s summertime scheme – a plan that’s totally out of touch with the food poverty reality facing millions in the UK.

“As the Eat Out To Really Help Out campaign understands well, any donations to foodbanks are urgent right now but more so are actions calling for an end for the need for charitable food aid. Now is the time to stop hunger from happening in the first place.”

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s acting director Helen Barnard has also spoken out against the government scheme, calling for a “stronger lifeline” to help families staving off hunger. She said: “You can go out for a £20 meal and have a £10 discount. That’s great if you have the other £10. But for millions of families across our country, eating out is an unimaginable luxury.

Advertisement

“It’s right that we support the hospitality industry and the people who work in it. But it’s not okay to leave those in the deepest poverty cast adrift.”

Image: Poppy Design Studio

Advertisement

Buy a Big Issue Vendor Support Kit

This Christmas, give a Big Issue vendor the tools to keep themselves warm, dry, fed, earning and progressing.

Recommended for you

View all
Meet the tireless volunteers making sure children in poverty have a Christmas to remember
Christmas toy appeals

Meet the tireless volunteers making sure children in poverty have a Christmas to remember

Here's what to do if you see a homeless person
a person lies on the pavement facing away from the camera, with a guitar propped up beside them
Homelessness

Here's what to do if you see a homeless person

These charities collect furniture for free to help those in need
a bare mattress pushed against a window in a dark room
Charity

These charities collect furniture for free to help those in need

Malala Yousafzai on taking on the Taliban and why 'storytelling is the soul of activism'
Malala Yousafzai
Activism

Malala Yousafzai on taking on the Taliban and why 'storytelling is the soul of activism'

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know
4.

Strike dates 2023: From train drivers to NHS doctors, here are the dates to know