Food Banks to provide certain lines only to those deemed ‘more on brand’

By Liz Bollard for The Oracle

New guidelines brought out today by the British Red Cross suggest sushi as the new government approved donation for the nation’s in-need; primarily as the omega-3 rich ‘finger food’ will cut down on wasteful plastic cutlery.

In a rather unsurprising turn of events, a select group of stores have requested that their products be respectfully withheld from general members of the homeless community. Instead, these donated products are to be given only to those who — though perhaps still homeless — are considered to be ‘more on brand’.

‘I can’t see anything wrong with doing this’, says Carolyn Whitshaw, head of Social Policy for Marks and Spencer. ‘I actually think this is more encouraging for them. For those people’.

‘What if you see that one person gets a deliciously tempting Spiced Calamari with Tzatiki Dip, and the other person just gets the usual packets of Brown Sauce. You would want to be like that first person. You would look at what they’re doing — maybe they have just made a bit of an effort — and you would begin to do the same. It would be life-changing. For all of those people.’

The pilot, if successful, intends to grow to include certain benefits for those chosen for the higher-class of meal.

‘I think this can go a long way to improving people’s lives’, says William Boldhew, the Partnerships Director for John Lewis. He went on to explain ‘If someone receives nine of our products in a row, because they have made that choice to be more on brand, then they get to go to a champagne reception and ceilidh on a boat on the Thames, with all the other homeless. Be a princess for a night before they return to their sick, sorry lives.’

The scheme looks set to pilot next April.