Paper short abstract:

This paper explores a food bank in the Netherlands and unravels the forms of care that are encountered there. It compares normativities as established in this grass root poverty alleviation with normativities in national poverty policies.

Paper long abstract:

Many Western countries have seen the emergence and spread of food banks over the last decades. In the Netherlands food banks have been founded as local, grass root initiatives since 2002 and reach an ever growing number of households with very low spendable incomes. For this paper I draw from fieldwork in a particular food bank in the Netherlands consisting of interviews with food receivers and food bank volunteers, as well as observation of various food bank related practices. The objective of this, and most other food banks in The Netherlands, is two sided. The organization distributes food past the expiration date and other unsellable products to households with very low spendable incomes to help the environment and simultaneously reduce food scarcity.

I unravel the kinds of care that are practiced in this food bank. Care is found in setting guidelines to ensure food safety, in reassuring people that they can eat food past the expiration date and in attending to people's feelings of shame about coming to the food bank. However, in some cases, harm and care prove to be intimately related. While distributing food past the expiration date was established as care for the environment, it also caused harm in receivers who felt they were degraded by eating 'waste'.

I conclude by comparing the diverse normativities about what counts as good and what as bad care in the food bank to such normativities in national policies on poverty, food safety and food waste.