The Growth of Food Aid in Sweden – How Demand and Supply are Transforming Charitable Organisations

1 Introduction

To distribute food to those in need is one of the most elementary and oldest types of charity work. It is also a type of charity that has grown and spread across Europe in recent decades, becoming an integral part in the welfare states of the continent (Lambie-Mumford and Silvasti 2021). The Financial Crisis of 2008, the Refugee Crisis of 2015, the Covid-19 Pandemic, and the recent economic and cost of living crisis have all further exacerbated the demand for food aid, and all indications are that charitable food donations will continue to grow in importance in the coming years. One country in Europe where the development has been particularly dramatic is Sweden. Although old organisations like the Church of Sweden and the Swedish City Missions have always distributed food to hungry people, recent years have seen the emergence of a distinct new type of food aid, growing to an entirely new scale. Collaborations between such organisations and large corporations in the food industry have established new methods and systems for turning potential food waste into food aid for a rapidly growing group of people in need. The Swedish example follows patterns that were established much earlier in many other European countries. The feature that stands out is the pace by which food aid has grown and found its place in Swedish civil society. In just 5–10 years, food aid has gone from primarily being a short-term relief for the most marginalised people in society, to a more established long-term type of economic assistance for low-income individuals and families. The development has, of course, also changed the organisations that provide the food aid, which are some of the oldest and most established organisations in Swedish civil society.

This article will identify and examine some of these rapid changes, to understand why this type of aid is growing so fast. Have they affected how staff and managers in the organisations view their own role and the mission of the organisations? What can these changes tell us about the role of food aid, during the economic crisis and beyond? Findings from an interview study conducted with representatives of several food charities at different locations in Sweden are presented in this article. These findings suggests that the growth in food aid offers both great potential as well as great challenges for the charitable non-profit organisations delivering it.

2 Background

The economic crisis that began in 2022 and its dramatic inflation have led to higher food prices, higher electricity prices, and rising interest rates on mortgages, in Sweden as in many other European countries. Even before this, there was an increasing need for food aid and other emergency relief in Sweden, which has prompted a growing importance of aid provided by charitable organisations (Herz 2021; Karlsson and Vamstad 2020). One reason for this is that some groups of people in need, like poor EU-citizens and undocumented migrants, have limited or unclear rights to public welfare in Sweden (Karlsson and Vamstad 2020). This is, however, not the only reason, there seems to be a growing need for non-profit services from much broader groups of people in poverty (Vamstad and Karlsson 2022; Vamstad 2022). The growing need is also documented in the observations and statistics collected by the charitable Civil Society Organisations (CSO) themselves.

The Swedish City Missions have seen a steady surge in demand for food aid in recent years. Their 2019 report on food poverty showed that about two thirds of their interactions with users consists of food aid and that the largest group of food aid recipients are people on long-term social welfare (Sveriges Stadsmissioner 2019). This group is mainly made up of struggling families that are included in the public welfare system, further showing that the growing needs are not “imported” through refugees and undocumented migrants, as is sometimes suggested (Sveriges Stadsmissioner 2019). A report from 2023 shows that the economic crisis and inflation have further broadened the group of food aid recipients, which now increasingly include working low-income earners and pensioners (Sveriges stadsmissioner 2023). In 2022 alone, the city mission increased the amount of food they distribute by 70 percent (Sveriges stadsmissioner 2023). The development described by the city missions is consistent with macroeconomic indicators showing a steady increase in income inequality in Sweden since the 1990’s (Swedish Fiscal Policy Council 2024).

Growing demand is, however, not the sole cause of the growth of food aid in Sweden and Europe (Lambie-Mumford and Silvasti 2021). A milestone in the process was the city missions’ strategic decision in 2015 to enter a collaboration with the food industry, as an active partner in redistributing food surplus (Sveriges stadsmissioner 2021). This move significantly increased their supply of food and marked the initiation of a new stage in their growth development, leading to food aid at a new scale. This change has spread to other non-profit organisations in Sweden, in some cases through cooperation with The Swedish City Missions. This novel approach has often been characterized by a narrative that presents it as a sustainable win-win solution, mutually benefiting those in need and the environment. This narrative is spread both by media stories, social media, and the organisations themselves.

3 Research on Food Aid

The large-scale, centralised, and increasingly professionalised food aid described in this article is only recently emerging as a significant aspect of civil society in Sweden. Consequently, there is very little Swedish research on the phenomenon, but research from other countries documents and analyses operations functioning as food banks as early as the 1980’s (Riches 2002). These are primarily other economically developed countries, the demand for this type of food aid is, perhaps counterintuitively, associated with high income countries (Mook, Murdock, and Gundersen 2020). Much of the international research takes a critical perspective on food aid (Lambie-Mumford and Silvasti 2021; Middelton et al. 2017). Providing food for hungry people may instinctively be considered as something positive, but several negative consequences have also been identified in social research. A profound concern is that food aid may contribute to relieving or absolving the government of responsibility for providing food for its citizens, hence enabling governments to ignore poverty (Lambie-Mumford 2019; Parr, Hawkins, and Dayson 2021; Riches 2002). Another way of describing this is that it “depoliticise hunger” (Caraher and Furey 2017). One of the strengths of food aid is that it serves the dual purpose of reducing both food waste and food insecurity (Galli, Hebinck, and Caroll 2018). Caraher and Furey (2017) however argue that food aid is counterproductive for both purposes; food aid undermines both calls for reductions in the overproduction of food and for social rights to basic needs. Leo Sandberg, Angelin, and Vamstad (2022) also challenges the description of food aid as a win-win solution, in a rare study of food aid in Sweden. Working with food surplus as sources for food aid also makes the organisation dependent on surplus instead of reducing it from the start (Galli, Hebinck, and Caroll 2018; Tikka 2019). This last point is of particular interest to this study, as it examines how the growth in food aid affects the organisations.

These critical perspectives question whether food aid actually is sustainable, or whether it institutionalises the use of food relief in a way that crowd out welfare rights, long term solutions and social work for change. A practice paper by Denning (2019) suggests a few ways in which food aid could be made more sustainable. The key to sustainability lies in combining short-term relief with long-term work for change. This involves building knowledge about the issue and making plans for the next ten years, rather than just getting swamped by the overwhelming day-to-day need (Denning 2019).

4 Food Aid and the Charity Economy

To distribute food surplus from industry to charity organisations can be described as a strategy to complement traditional business practices with a charitable element that expands their reach to include people unable to buy their food independently. Kessl (2018:37) defines this new charity economy as a distribution system in which basic goods are distributed for free or sold at discount prices to “the poor” or “the needy” through voluntary helpers or low-paid staff. Donations either supplement or replace public welfare provisions (Kessl, Oechler, and Schöder 2020). The concept of charity economy emphasizes that the novelty is the transformation of the welfare state where charities, through a much more visible and rapidly growing sector, provide necessities like food and clothes to those in need. Charities are often supported by political approval and allocation of public resources, one of them being the essential provision of free labour through municipal, sometimes mandatory, work activation programs (Kessl, Oechler, and Schöder 2020). This development towards welfare pluralism can be interpreted as a public and political acceptance of charity as an indispensable provider for vulnerable households, which may be perceived as an anomaly and disgrace that contributes to the institutionalisation of charitable food aid in a welfare state that aspires to be comprehensive and based on social rights. CSOs increasingly constitute a last resort and replacement when austerity measures are implemented and during retrenchment processes of comprehensive welfare states (Kessl 2015). The distributed charity predominantly consists of goods discarded by consumers on the primary and ordinary market and then redirected to an increasingly established secondary market as a poverty reduction strategy. The organisation of the divided market for primary and secondary consumers is likely to cause stigma for the latter. Sweden is relatively late in seeing the establishment of charity economy practices, like food aid, as CSOs are only now becoming significant actors in poverty relief (Leo Sandberg, Angelin, and Vamstad 2022).

5 The Charity Economy and Institutional Logics

While CSOs now hold an increasingly prominent position as distributors of food aid for poverty relief, it also constitutes a challenge to adapt to a very different practical reality. Handling thousands of tons of food that needs to be chilled, stored, distributed, and sold within pressing time constraints, as the durability of the food often is considerably limited, requires substantial allocation of resources. In addition to this, CSOs also need to closely collaborate with the donating wholesale and food industry stakeholders in an inter-related dependency that departs from different institutional logics and rationalities (Friedland and Alford 1991). The secondary market organised through a CSO-based charity economy is in constant connection and dependence on the primary market and its indispensable donations of surplus products (Kessl, Oechler, and Schöder 2020). As an organisation in need of resources provided by other actors, there is a drive to be recognized as legitimate and a likeliness to accept control or influence from the providers that are most essential as well as adapting to norms, values, and beliefs from the dominant logic (Friedland and Alford 1991; Garrow and Hasenfeld 2010; Johansson 2002). The market logics of the donating for-profit organisations are based on other, and at times even incompatible rationales than the guiding logics of CSO operations which may create tensions and involuntary adaptations as well as dynamic developments as a result of institutional complexity (Cherrier, Paromita, and Subhasis 2018; Greenwood et al. 2011). In short, entering into food aid collaborations with corporate businesses in a charity economy will inevitably affect the way CSOs operates. This is therefore an expected consequence of the growth in food aid on the organisations providing it.

6 Method and Materials

This article is based on 24 semi-structured interviews with staff and management at CSOs in different locations in Sweden. Interviewees were recruited from two of the largest organisations in Swedish food aid, the Swedish City Missions, and the Church of Sweden. Both organisations are faith-based, but they differ in that the City Missions are traditional charity organisations while the Church of Sweden is the former state church. The Swedish City Missions act as an umbrella organisation for 10 local city missions. The Church of Sweden act both in rural and non-rural areas and about half the Swedish population are members. Some of the food aid is carried out together with other CSOs, such as the Salvation Army and Hela Människan [“The Whole Human”], organisations that also perform social work from a Christian standpoint. The interviews were performed in the autumn of 2022.

The interviewees in all organisations can be categorised into three groups:

1. They have a leading position within the organisation.

2. They are organising and hands-on working with food charities.

3. They have both roles at the same time.

Fifteen of the informants were women, and nine were men. All had a university education; the most common was a bachelor’s degree in social work (12 people), and most social workers also had a deacon’s degree (nine people). Four people were born in a country other than Sweden. Geographically the informants are spread from north to south of Sweden, they work in different locality types, and the food charity is supplied as food baskets, food banks or social supermarkets. Food baskets, in practical terms, refer to pre-packaged bags of groceries, food bank is a broad term for an organisation distributing food and social supermarkets are stores selling surplus food to low-income customers, who are often members in the store. The authors of this article have conducted the interviews, half of the interviews were conducted in situ, and half of them were conducted through video call. Using an interview guide and opening for other questions, the interviews took 45–90 min. All interviews are transcribed to verbatim transcripts with the names of the interviewees kept confidential, the total length of the transcripts was 567 pages.

The transcripts were analysed using a thematic analysis. The analysis was conducted in several stages. Firstly, the transcripts were scanned for blocks of text that was relevant for the aims of this article. These were, secondly, re-read to identify meaningful passages essential to the interpretation of the text. Thirdly, these passages were elaborated and interpreted in comments to the text, with the help of theory and previous research. Fourthly, the interpretations were shared and discussed with two additional researchers, to come to a shared understanding. Fifthly, the passages, with their interpretations were organised in categories and sixthly, the categories were grouped in eight, broader themes. The broader themes were later identified as belonging to three approximate levels, the micro (2 themes), the meso (4 themes) and the macro (2 themes). The results are here structured in accordance with these eight themes at their three levels. The different stages of the analysis were documented in a variation of a framework analysis (Goldsmith 2021).

Formal Ethical Approval was secured from the Swedish Ethical Review Authority on the 1st of July 2022 (Ref. No. 2022-02413-01). Ethical research principles, like information, consent and pseudonymisation, have been followed. Even if the theme of the research itself would not be seen as sensitive for the representatives, the orientation of the organisations as faith-based opened for reflections on faith, and Ethical Approval was therefore assessed. All the informants have signed an agreement to participate.

7 Findings

The categories and themes identified in the thematic analysis paint a picture with many layers. The presentation of themes and categories is organised as they appear in three clusters roughly representing a micro, meso and macro level. The organisation in levels is approximate, and themes at different levels are clearly not entirely separate from each other. At the micro or individual level, there are personal thoughts and often concerns about the rapid growth of food donations as a charitable activity. At the meso, or organisational, level, interviewees share their observations about how the growth in food aid has affected their organisation, for better or worse. Finally, at the macro, or societal level, there are descriptions of how the dominant media logic plays into the development. Starting at the micro level, the presentation will gradually widen the scope over the two following levels, and end in a concluding discussion.

8 Discussion

The rapid expansion and establishment of a new type of food aid service in Sweden is in part demand driven. The numbers describing rising memberships in social food stores and other statistics illustrate this, as do the descriptions of a seemingly endless need in the interviews. The interviews have also shown, however, that the development is not purely demand driven. There are also factors driving an expansion of the supply of food aid that seem to originate from within the organisations, as seen in the findings. One such factor is the formalised collaboration with the food industry, which has provided the organisations with incomparably more food than they could have collected with traditional methods. The new food aid is directed towards broader, partly new groups of aid recipients like low-income earners and pensioners, not just people in homelessness and other severely marginalised groups. This is a result of growing demand and need from broader groups, but also of the fact that the industrial supply of food requires a larger target group, in other words greater demand. This finding could serve as a textbook example of what is known as the charity economy, an economy in which charity becomes a way to include more people in the market economy by creating a secondary market that interact with the primary market (Kessl 2018).

Reflecting on the question of the role of food aid posed in the introduction, it seems likely that the new food aid will not only be sustained, but continue to grow when the economic crises of the early 2020’s have passed. The demand created by the crisis is only part of the success story and the infrastructure of the charity economy that is being created will most likely remain long term. Whether or not this will lead to incremental institutionalisation of charity food aid and absolving governments from taking less responsibility for food security, or the “depoliticising of hunger”, as suggested by some scholars, remains to be seen and researched (Caraher and Furey 2017; Lambie-Mumford 2019; Riches 2002). The results from our study indicate that the professionals actually operating large scale food aid services anticipate this scenario and are aware of its associated risks.

Distributing such large quantities of food also requires professionalisation. There is the daunting task of transporting and handling large quantities of food, but also health and safety requirements, as well as an eagerness to act professionally and in adherence with the institutional logics of the corporate food donors. The process of professionalisation is in many ways a success-story, especially the city missions have taken great leaps in professionalisation through their development of a social food store concept and brand, its logistics and digitalisation in the industrial food supply chain, and in their formalised relations with many of the large businesses in the food industry. The success has inspired more success, particularly the top management, according to our interviewees, wants to be successful in expanding more, to help more people. Professionalisation in this form is the result of a mutual exchange of institutional logics between businesses and the CSOs, which is reflected in the business-like goals of quantitatively maximising output, as well as attracting positive attention for contributions to social and ecological sustainability to the brands of each of the collaborating organisations (Garrow and Hasenfeld 2010).

The successful expansion of food aid attracts more demand, as the positive public reactions and media attention spread awareness to more people in economic need. The successful expansion also attracts more supply making the charitable economy grow as more individuals and businesses want to contribute with volunteering and donations (Kessl 2018). The expansion of charity economy is in part self-propelling, or at least it has been up to this point. The are some indications in the interviews that the drive in the expanding food aid also could power other types of aid and social work, by acting as a “flag ship” and rousing the support from volunteers and donors. The organisations are, however, quick to admit that they have a poor record in their efforts to combine food aid with other activities focusing more on long term aid aiming at social change. On the contrary, staff and volunteers seem to be transferring from less successful, often more traditional, activities to the new, dynamic food aid. Although the organisations wish to have a well-rounded and sustainable repertoire of services, they also realise that expanding food aid is a better investment. Resources diverted to food aid will multiply through influx of both supply and demand, while resources spent on some other types of social work remain just a cost and not as sought after. There is therefore a good possibility that the expansion of food aid primarily leads to more expansion of food aid. Such an outcome would be in line with what we know from research from other countries, where the institutionalisation of food aid, in some cases, has crowded out education and advocacy (Riches 2002). This is a reason why in the UK there has been a coordinated effort to ensure that the food aid offer “more than food”, something we are now starting to see in the Swedish organisations in this study (Lambie-Mumford 2019; Parr, Hawkins, and Dayson 2021).

The expansion of food aid in Sweden seems to be driven not only by a growth in demand and supply, but also by factors entirely external to the work of the organisations. The dominant one is clearly the media influence, which fuels the expansion of food aid according to its own logic, for its own purposes. The media narrative emphasises the economic hardships and growing needs in society, and organisations visibly alleviating those needs naturally come out as one-sidedly positive. Media outlets even reject more balanced narratives provided by the organisations themselves. The attention and framing provided by media lead to more public awareness and more support, but it must also influence how staff and management at the organisations think about their work and what its mission and priorities should be.

One of the questions this article set out to answer was how the growth of food aid has affected how staff and managers in the organisations perceive their own role and the mission of the organisations. For many working in the organisations the growing food aid is a situation of moral ambiguity, leading to sincere personal ambivalence. They resent the fact that the need is growing and that they and not the government have to address it, they would rather be doing other things, but they are ultimately guided by a calling to help in the way they can, which in the present situation is through food aid. The ambivalence at the individual level is transformed into organisational strain, as different parts of the organisations grow at different paces. The individual and organisational struggles with the development raise the question whether it is socially sustainable. The question is present in the efforts to balance relief and social work for durable change. The organisations seem to have accepted that food aid is a relief effort that will be important also in the long-term, and they are looking for ways to make it more sustainable by associating it with individual change. This development is very similar to that identified by research in countries, like the UK (e.g, Denning 2019).

9 Conclusions

The reason why food aid is growing so fast in Sweden is the powerful dynamic of a growing demand meeting a growing supply in the new, business-like collaboration between charitable organisations and the food industry. This new style of professional food aid represents a departure from more traditional forms of aid and social work provided by charities in Sweden. The transformation from the traditional to the new has affected how staff and managers at the organisations see their own roles and the mission of the organisations. The growth in food aid has offered relief to growing numbers of people in need during the economic crisis. It has also laid the foundation for a charity economy that will remain significant well beyond the end of the crisis.