Experiences accessing food during COVID-19: A Case Study with Foodhall, Sheffield

This is a public-facing summary report of a research study conducted by University of Sheffield researchers in partnership with Foodhall Project CIC, a community food organisation in Sheffield. This report provides an overview of Foodhall's emergency food distribution efforts during the first COVID-19 lockdown in the UK (March-July 2020), using data provided by organisation, and also draws upon semi-structured interviews conducted by the author of this report (Kennard) with fourteen individuals receiving food support from Foodhall. These interviews provide context to understand the barriers to accessing food and interacting with support efforts during COVID-19. This report was intended to provide insight and recommendations to other community food organizations for future crisis response efforts. The report will accompany future academic publlications (currently in drafting stages) that draw upon the same research data. 

This research involved human participants and was given ethical clearance by the University of Sheffield ethics committee (application number 035915). Each interviewed participant provided verbal consent (which was recorded during the interviews) for these interviews to be used share publically, with identities remaining confidential, in line with University ethical procedures. Thus, pseudonyms are used to refer to each of the fourteen interviewed participants within the report. The report also features images of volunteers at Foodhall; each volunteer provided verbal or written consent for their photos and names to be shared within the report. 

This report was written by Nicole Kennard (University of Sheffield), who was the primary researcher for this project and who conducted the interviews. Kennard also served as a volunteer at Foodhall during the time of this research. This research project was also supported by Dr. Megan Blake (University of Sheffield) in a supervisory capacity. Images for the report were photographed by Mark Harvey (iD8 Photography), who provided consent for them to be reproduced within this report.