Could supermarkets for poor people tackle the UK’s chronic food poverty?
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Version 0 of 1. It is rare to meet someone in the poverty world who does not profess to be motivated by politics, faith or social injustice. But Mark Game, who runs Community Shop, seems almost embarrassed by the idea that he might be trying to do anything other than run a successful business. Practical problem-solving, he says, is his thing. He is not religious, and he is not really a politics person. Community Shop offers its low-income customers heavily discounted food, and in return requires them to sign up for a programme of social support and advice, from life skills to debt counselling. It aims to tackle hunger, and at least some of the causes of hunger, and make a profit doing so. It currently has just two shops, one in Goldthorpe, Yorkshire, that began as a pilot scheme a little over a year ago, and a second in West Norwood, south London, which opened in December. Related: Community Shops are no good if you don’t have any money | Jack Monroe Despite its novelty, Community Shop was praised by the recent cross-party parliamentary inqury report into hunger, Feeding Britain, which said councils should help to roll the model out nationally. A study by the thinktank Demos, published today, is similarly enthusiastic, calling for food banks to convert themselves into Community Shop-type operations. Government ministers are inviting Game to meetings. The London mayor Boris Johnson, and his food policy adviser, Rosie Boycott, are understood to be fans. In part, the interest in Community Shop reflects its potential, some believe, to be a super-charged food bank. The Demos report notes that food banks, while good at supporting people in emergencies, are less well equipped to help the 50% or so of their clients who are in chronic food poverty. Community Shop provides six to 12 months of access to cheap food to members, who are spared the indignity of the charity food parcel handouts, and receive help and support that, in theory, transforms their life. “What Community Shop does really well is give people a sense of ownership,” says Ally Paget, co-author of the Demos study. “It provides more than food. It builds people up. The ethos is all about people being given back the chance to be consumers. It’s not a hand-out; it is access to a supermarket where you have choice.” The West Norwood store is out of sight behind a waste and recycling centre (Game wanted a high street shop, but 3,000sq ft premises are almost impossible to come by in London’s booming retail market, he says). Inside it looks like any other small supermarket, but well stocked with surplus products from food manufacturers. Rather than go to landfill, those tins and packets fill the shelves of the store. There are Marks and Spencers chocolate digestives for 19p and cans of Heinz baked beans for 22p, Tesco marmalade at 15p a jar, Waitrose cheddar and Asda curry sauce; bread, fruit, fresh meat, milk, pasta, cleaning and hygiene products – all discounted by between 10% and 70%. There is no cast-iron guarantee that basics like bread and milk will be there (stock depends on availability of surplus food stocks), which means there might be, in theory, organic pigeon breast, but no bacon; goats’ milk but no cows’ milk. You can get heavily discounted sweets and fizzy drinks, (the local public health lobby objected to Community Shop’s arrival in Lambeth for this reason) but not cigarettes, alcohol or lottery tickets. Game insists this is a technical issue related to tax, rather than a moral decision. To get Community Shop membership you must live near the store and be in receipt of means-tested benefits. “We primarily target the working poor, the people who are struggling on a minimum wage, or are in a part-time job and struggling to find a way, day-to-day,” says Game. “People on the cusp of chronic poverty”. Some are referred, including by the local jobcentre, others come by word of mouth. Cheap food is a draw. At any one time a store will have up to 750 members. A condition of membership is to sign up to the success plan (slogan: “Be the best version of you”), a jaunty personal development programme that members must attend at the store once a week. “We try to give [members] the space and the time to look at what’s going right in their life and what’s not, and what we can help with,” says Game. It could be confidence issues, or job interview coaching, or housing advice, either for them, or a family member. The idea is that after six (or a maximum of 12) months members have successfully addressed the issues that are holding them back, and return their membership card. By then, the theory goes, they will be rejuvenated consumers and citizens, ready to return to the high-street retailers that their poverty or indebtedness had priced them out of, and a fresh set of low-income members takes their place. But does it work? An evaluation of the first pilot store, in Goldthorpe, based on the first six months of its membership programme is not yet complete. Game says mistakes were inevitably made but it was broadly positive. Initial findings suggest 20% of unemployed members who have completed six months training with Community Shop have subsequently found jobs (though it is not clear what other interventions may have been taking place simultaneously); a majority of members said they felt financially better off (by an average £53 a month), more confident and happier. It’s hard to know what to make of this, other than it seems unlikely to have done harm. Might similar outcomes have been achieved had members received benefit payment that reflected living costs, or had not been subjected to the bedroom tax, or were paid the living wage? Certainly, according to Game, most members say they appreciate the experience, in particular the “breathing space” it gives them at a time of crisis. Many are socially isolated, he points out, and welcome the social interaction that the shop enables.But what happens after 12 months if the underlying problem remains? What if the ongoing problem is not a personal skills deficiency but lack of money, or a lack of jobs locally? “The danger is that it [Community Shop] solves hunger but it doesn’t solve the underlying causes of poverty, that it frames the problem of poverty at the level of the individual, rather than structure,” says Martin Caraher, professor of health and food policy at City University. Community Shop has grown out of the well established Company Shop, which has a successful track record taking manufacturers’ surplus food and selling it back to their workers through discount staff shops. Some 20 Community Shop stores are planned throughout the UK, 12 in the capital and it is “working on a plan” to pay the living wage to its 40 staff, some of whom will be members (customers), says Game. It has pumped £1.5m into the project and leases its West Norwood store at a peppercorn rent from Lambeth council, but hopes to be self-sufficient by the time it has reached a “critical mass” of stores. Would Game prefer that there wasn’t a demand for Community Shop? “Naturally. But I’m a realist. I recognise this problem isn’t going to go away quickly,” he replies. Food poverty may have become a highly-politicised topic. But Game won’t be drawn on social justice issues: “We are not really looking to shape welfare reform. We are very, very good at developing practical solutions.” |