Tina, a disabled lone parent, laughs in despair as she describes to me the tinned, dried and unappetising rations she was given by the local food bank. Like many of those living in poverty, Tina had been reluctant to use the local food bank, in this case run by the Trussell Trust. The additional costs of fuel, food and clothes in the winter months had battered the carefully managed small household budget and, faced with hungry children, she had capitulated and sought out referral to the food bank.

The food she received was inadequate, based on ‘ludicrous’ assumptions that people would be content with meals consisting of dried pasta, jarred sauce and tinned beans. Tina was poor but she was, after all, not living in a war zone or in the midst of a climate disaster. The experience of seeking help from the food bank was demoralising, if not insulting, and Tina was adamant that whatever the food shortages in their household she would not return.

Tina's experience is, nevertheless, not one of those heard in the vignettes of food bank users carefully curated by powerful organisations like the Trussell Trust and FareShare, vignettes which present a grateful food aid ‘client’, failed by the social security system but saved from hunger by food charity. These accounts may acknowledge the shame and stigma associated with food charity, but they do not admit the role which food aid may play in creating stigma, upholding inequalities, and maintaining the very status quo which food charities claim, in public statements and campaigns, to reject.

Scratch beneath the surface of these good Samaritan narratives of food aid and food insecurity and there is a complex and murky scene.