Cambridgeshire is one of the most prosperous regions in the UK, renowned for its world-leading innovation cluster. Yet, food bank queues have grown longer and longer in the past 10 years, reaching record length with the COVID-19 pandemic. In partnership with the local authorities we have investigated - why are more and more residents in Cambridgeshire, a region generating £48bn annual revenue, struggling to put food on the table? Mapping the system of food poverty in Cambridgeshire has revealed interconnections between the broader national system, the economic context of the region and family budgets. Food poverty is a symptom of poverty – at the end of the day, families’ budgets are increasingly squeezed between frozen resource streams and living costs set on fire. Unfortunately, many well-intentioned support programmes neglect these underlying causes of food poverty, and instead focus on providing temporary relief.
