At Your Local Pantry, we regularly evaluate our work to measure the difference we are making in communities. We want to steward our resources well and improve our effectiveness, sharing good practice across our network and beyond to the wider sector.
During 2025-6 Your Local Pantry, one of Britain’s biggest community food networks, reached its millionth visit
The findings give the clearest proof yet that Pantries prevent both foodbank use and hunger.
More than two thirds of members (71%) who had previously had to use food banks were able to reduce or completely stop their food bank usage, after joining Pantries:
“It has meant I don’t have to use food banks anymore. My money is able to be stretched more and used for priority bills.”
Your Local Pantries provide vital points of social connection.
In a world that feels increasingly divided, Pantries offer the opportunity to meet together with neighbours, promoting community cohesion and tackling social isolation and loneliness.
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82% of members feel more connected to their community:
“It has been an absolute blessing for many reasons, not just helping with the cost of living on a low income and debt repayment plan, but also I found friends, connected with people and it improved my mental health and sense of being included and belonging to a local community. Everyone who is lucky to be a member of the pantry feels the same. I spoke to people and they are all very grateful”
Pantries save members money - typically between £14 and £42 a week, compared to supermarket prices, with an average saving of £27 a week.
If a member visits every week, that would amount to saving over £1,322 a year!
Pantries also help holistically, connecting members to wider services and wraparound support that can help to build financial resilience, often offering these services on site.
Regular access to Pantry is positively associated with enhanced wellbeing, as well as improved diet quality.
Members frequently describe their Local Pantries as warm, welcoming communities where dignity is upheld, friendships are built, and support is available. As a result, 63% of respondents reported that they feel more confident in themselves since they joined the Pantry.
A new illustrated video of research from the SALIENT trial shows the impact that Pantries have for their members and communities.
The video has been created following research looking at the difference that Pantry membership makes to people’s lives.
The SALIENT research team worked with people who had become members of a Your Local Pantry, and also people who were waiting for their membership to be processed.
We’ll be sharing the full findings in more detail later this year, but for now this video gives a succinct and encouraging summary. Enjoy!
Our 2024 report details the impact the food hubs are having including that:
* Saving members £5.76m and £10.5m in the past two years.
* Members are having a greater say in how Pantries are run.
* Pantries are becoming central to community life in many areas
