Abstract
Food banks have become embedded in societies across the developed world. Irrespective of the economic climate food banks, once established, they appear to persist indefinitely. In the face of global economic austerity the numbers using food banks are spiraling. These predictions have proved accurate in the UK where there are now close to 1000 food banks in every corner of the country, with more opening each week. The focus on the reasons for the growth in the number of food banks in neo-liberal economies of the global north, drawing on examples from the US, Canada, Australia and Europe. This chapter will address the following:
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1.
The evidence for the effectiveness of food banks
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2.
Why food banks have flourished in times of austerity
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3.
The concept of food banks as ‘successful failures’
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Ronson, D., Caraher, M. (2016). Food Banks: Big Society or Shunting Yards? Successful Failures. In: Caraher, M., Coveney, J. (eds) Food Poverty and Insecurity: International Food Inequalities. Food Policy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23859-3_8
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