When Toilet Roll Becomes a Luxury: The Changing Face of Food Bank Britain

October 15, 2026 3 min read

When Toilet Roll Becomes a Luxury: The Changing Face of Food Bank Britain

There was a story on the radio this week that really shocked me.

The headline was families across the UK are going without toilet roll because they can't afford it. To be honest, I was sceptical at first but the data backs the claim up. A survey published this month by The Hygiene Bank and In Kind Direct (Time to Act: Hygiene Poverty in the UK in 2026) found that almost one in five UK households (18%) have gone without basic hygiene products in the past six months. Almost half of them said toilet roll was the item they gave up most often. Almost 40% of the people surveyed said this was their first time in that position.

Last year, food banks in the Trussell network handed out more than 2.6 million emergency food parcels. That's one every 12 seconds. It's 12% fewer than in 2024 but it is still 45% higher than before the pandemic.

The longer-term trends are tough to read:

62% of parcels went to families with children, even though families with children make up only 42% of the UK population.
Parcels for people aged 65 and over rose by 247%, from about 26,000 in 2019 to more than 90,000 in 2025.
Beyond food banks, Trussell's research suggests 14.1 million people, including 3.8 million children, faced hunger in the past year because they didn't have enough money. In 2022 the figure was 11.6 million.

Those figures don't even include the 1,000 independent food banks, or the church, school and community pantries helping to fill the gaps.

Who is using food banks now?

The old picture of a food bank user is out of date. More and more, the person in the queue is someone who goes to work every day.

30% of people referred to Trussell food banks now live in a working household, up from 24% in 2022. Most of them (72%) also claim Universal Credit to top up wages that don't stretch far enough. Care workers, bus drivers, shop workers and hospitality staff are among those most likely to go hungry. These are the people who keep the country running.

Disabled people are hit hardest of all, making up 74% of people referred to food banks. After housing costs, the average family at a food bank has about £104 a week for everything else. That's roughly a sixth of what the typical UK household has left.

When working families, pensioners and disabled people all have to choose between groceries and toilet roll, this is no longer about a small group falling through the cracks. Our whole society is under strain.

How you can help, and make your money go further

My first reaction was anger at the greedy elites and incompetent politicians who have put us in this position. My next thought was "We need to do something practical about this".

We have not spoken much about them for a while but, At We Are Fair Trade, we have been offering food bank donation vouchers since we started.

It Is a simple scheme. You make a donation by buying donation vouchers to the value you want. At the end of each period, we donate goods, to a local food bank, (at cost) to the value of the donations received.

Between now and Christmas we will focus on giving toilet roll.

That means two kinds of good come from one gift. A family facing a hard week gets the supplies they need and the people who produce them still get a fair price. Fair trade has always been about dignity at both ends of the supply chain, and that matters as much here at home as it does overseas.

No one should have to choose between dinner and toilet roll. Until that changes, we can make sure every pound given does as much good as possible.

[Buy a food bank donation voucher today →]