Distribution points identify support needs
Distribution points refer about 421 clients each year to formal support, including neighbourhood services, WPI and mental healthcare.
Insight
Social restaurants are prevention places
Social restaurants combine affordable hot meals with meeting, structure, mental calm and social recognition.
Neighbourhood food places reduce escalation
Neighbourhood food places combine growing, cooking, eating and meeting, and create a bridge to formal care.
Less visible groups are reached
Food initiatives also reach families without stable housing, people without DigiD and households living in hidden poverty.
Informal aid fills formal gaps
RIVM describes informal food initiatives as accessible social shadow work between formal and informal support.
Food poverty amplifies health problems
A lack of money or access to healthy food increases health problems, healthcare costs and reduced self-reliance.
A healthy meal is not always affordable
In Amsterdam, about a quarter of low-income households and more than a third of minimum-income households regularly report having too little money for a healthy meal.
Food access and health reinforce each other
Cheap, energy-dense but nutrient-poor food increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and mental health problems.
Less waste can lower prices
WUR model research shows that 40% less food waste can lower market prices: vegetables by 4%, fruit by 2% and grains by 1%.
The 10% scenario makes choices comparable
The 10% scenario calculates interventions as if they served 900 households or about 2,600 people.