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3. Accrington
3. Accrington
The Pantry
The Pantry
More about the Pantry
On the main street, there is a shop with a difference. You can walk in buy healthy food cheaply and 'Fruits for free'
Food pantries are also known as social supermarkets or community shops. They usually operate using a membership model. Members typically pay a small amount of money each week as a membership fee for a basket of subsidised and healthy food, including fresh produce.
Pantries..
Pantries..
Pantries are generally set up to look like a shop, and members can usually choose the products they want, although there may be limits on how much of certain items they can choose e.g. for a £3 membership fee members may be able to choose 10 items. Members have opportunities to provide feedback and shape how the pantry is run and the products available. Some accept Healthy Start as payment, or other schemes such as Alexandra Rose vouchers.
Surplus food is usually a significant source of food supply, from providers such as Fareshare and the Felix project, pantries may also receive donations, and may purchase food from a variety of settings, sometimes this is negotiated at a reduced price.
Pantries usually require volunteers to run and may have some staff.
Homegrown Apples
Homegrown Apples
Talking of 'fruits for free', I had a lot of apples this year - both eating (Gala) and cooking varieties.
So I plucked them, many with my new extended fruit picker, put them in the car and took them to the Pantry.
Here is a connection on our tour.. This Gala tree (Malling 25 rootstock) came from the Incredible Farm in Todmorden, which we visit next.
Why not more widespread?
Why not more widespread?
I wonder why deliveries like this aren't going on in a dozen different ways all over the country - linking the countryside providing healthy food to the towns - like we did in the past; witness Vale of Evesham for Birmingham and the Garden of Kent for London. Apples are renowned for their nutritional benefits, and we can cultivate hundreds of different varieties, thanks to our ideal climate. This year, there is a surplus which could easily be given away in supermarkets. But they don't, perhaps because you won't then buy Australian 'Pink Lady', South African 'Granny Smith's', French 'Golden Delicious', or New Zealand 'Jazz'...
I remember being told by the Director of Fruit Research Station at East Malling (where 'Malling rootstocks' get their name, and I was a student) that 'The British Housewife will never buy Golden Delicious'. Hmm.....he didn't reckon with supermarkets...
How to deal with this?
Knowing poorer people are not going to pay more for food - even if deemed healthier.
Frontier economics reckons NHS £20B & lower productivity £16 = 2X GP services.
Instead of continuing 'trickle down' - subsidising landowners, lets do what the US do - spend $50+B to give to 40m poorer people to buy local food. It is called SNAP. That's £1000+ for each family here to buy better food at places like Pantry.
This should provide funding for decent jobs doing good on living wages, instead of relying on volunteer work
We should be campaigning for the same.
After weeks of chaos and cruelty from the White House, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. has ordered the Trump administration to immediately fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in full after the president’s team let food stamp benefits lapse for the first time in American history.
As you may guess this is under attack from the incumbent President. Latest
SNAP & Trump
SNAP & Trump
BREAKING:October 29 Judge RIPS Trump, says she’ll BLOCK his SNAP cuts that’ll make kids “die". Brutal words
U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani made her frustration clear in court today. “Right now, Congress has put money in an emergency fund for an emergency, and it’s hard for me to understand how this isn’t an emergency when there’s no money and a lot of people are needing their SNAP benefits,” she said.
The case comes as the Trump administration blocks the use of billions in contingency funds that Congress specifically set aside to protect the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during crises. Democrats from 25 states and several governors have sued, saying the administration’s refusal is cruel and illegal.
Talwani laid into Trump. “It does seem to me really clear what Congress was trying to do,” she said. “What Congress was trying to do is protect the American people.” At one point, she cut through his lawyers’ excuses, saying, “That’s lawyering. I want agency ACTION, not lawyering.”
She made it plain that she plans to act fast, though she warned that even with a court order, some families might see delays. “We’re not going to make everyone drop dead from hunger,” she added, her voice sharp with disbelief.
The stakes could not be higher. SNAP feeds over 40 million Americans each month... children, seniors, veterans, working families. In Massachusetts alone, more than a million people depend on the program to survive. Yet the Trump administration insists it can’t use the funds because the shutdown doesn’t count as a “disaster.”
This is the same administration that spent years mocking people on food assistance, calling them “lazy” and “dependent,” while handing billionaires tax cuts and funneling cash to political donors. They tried to slash SNAP in 2019 and again in 2020, even during the pandemic. Now they’re sitting on billions meant to keep families from going hungry, all to prove a political point.
Judge Talwani has challenged Trump officials before. She once blocked their cruel attempts to end humanitarian parole for immigrants, saying the administration’s disregard for human lives had gone too far. Her actions have consistently reminded this country what compassion in government is supposed to look like.
This isn’t about budgets or bureaucracy. It’s about a government that sees starving people as leverage.
Like and Share if you support Judge Talwani standing up to Trump’s cruelty and fighting to keep the most vulnerable Americans fed.
Confusion after White House walks back Trump’s comments on SNAP benefits
Confusion after White House walks back Trump’s comments on SNAP benefits
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt walked back Trump’s comments that SNAP would only continue when the government reopens, clarifying that the administration will comply with a court order to at least partially fund the program.
Nov. 4, 2025, 10:27 PM GMT / Updated Nov. 5, 2025, 3:13 PM GMT
By Erum Salam
Confusion is swirling around the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, after President Donald Trump and the White House issued conflicting statements about its status during the ongoing government shutdown.
Trump said Tuesday that benefits would only be distributed when Democrats reopen the government. In doing so, he was threatening to flout a judge’s order and contradict his own administration after the Agriculture Department said in court filings Monday that it agreed to comply with the order to use its $4.65 billion contingency fund to pay out SNAP benefits during the shutdown.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!” Trump posted on Truth Social early Tuesday.
Ultra-Processed
Ultra-Processed
50% food energy we now consume in UK (higher than rest of Europe) is ultra-processed food.
50% food energy we now consume in UK (higher than rest of Europe) is ultra-processed food.
Where they come from
While many are making the link between up foods and obesity, we should also be looking at where ultra-processed foods are coming from. Virtually all comes from a long long way, processed as it goes along....
5 main up ingredients: Soy oil from Brazil Palm Oil from Malaysia, Corn flour & syrup and cane sugar from USA ( wheat flour.?) UK sugar beet is not used. Three of these (corn, cane sugar and palm oil) have had their import tariffs reduced since Brexit.
Where they go
Where they go
And where are all these ultra-processed foods? Pulverised, ultra-processed food is found in baby foods and takeaways - cheap and cheerful. Poor busy people buy. In Lancashire, 46.4 percent of all takeaways can be found in the 20 percent of places with the highest levels of deprivation. In contrast, the 20 percent least deprived areas account for only 5.5 percent of Lancashire’s takeaway tally. No wonder obesity is class related disorder of the poor. Leading contributor to obesity- now estimated to cost nearly £100BILLION/yr.
In 2022, the calculation was made that there were 1,408 fast food joints across the county council area (ie excluding Blackpool & Blackburn). That equated to one for every 890 people – a higher rate than the England average of one per 958 residents. It notes a “strong positive correlation” between obesity amongst reception-aged and year 6 children and the prevalence of hot food takeaways in an area – although it acknowledges that it is not possible to establish a direct causal link between the two.
Click for film version
My friend Richard Hooper's 'Takeaway St'
reworking of Hogarth's 'Gin Lane'
For more commentary,
see Takeaway St
The stage was set for a Hyndburn Food Hub to encourage local food production, but that seems to have been swept away.
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