Back To People

Hannah is a Research Fellow at SPERI and Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations. Her research focuses on food insecurity, the rise of emergency food provision and the human right to food. Her work has been at the forefront of the emerging evidence base on the growth of food charity in the UK with her studies on the Trussell Trust Foodbank Network, FareShare and other independent initiatives.

Hannah has successfully managed and completed projects on food charity and food insecurity for funders including the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and in 2013-14 she was lead author of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) funded ‘review of food aid’ which was commissioned in response to growing concern about rising uptake of food charity. In June 2014 Hannah was awarded first prize for Outstanding Early Career Impact at the ESRC’s Celebrating Impact awards.

Hannah is a registered specialist with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) for her research expertise in food and poverty and sits on Child Poverty Action Group’s (CPAG) Policy Advisory Committee.

Research Interests

Hannah’s current work, funded by the British Academy, focuses on the rise of food charity across Europe.

Since the mid-2000s a number of European countries have experienced the rise of charitable emergency food banks feeding people in need in the context of post crisis austerity and significantly reformed welfare states. This research project brings together academic partners in Spain, Germany and the UK for one of the first systematic comparative studies to explore what this phenomenon reveals about the changing nature of care for people in or at risk of poverty in contemporary Europe.

The research looks in particular at the extent to which the simultaneous rise of food banks and implementation of austerity and welfare reform policies in these countries represents a systematic privatisation and localisation of care for those in food insecurity.

Key Publications

Books

  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2017) Hungry Britain: The rise of food charity, Bristol: Policy Press

Articles

  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2019) ‘The growth of food banks in Britain and what they mean for social policy.’ Critical Social Policy 39 (1): 3-22
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. and Sims, L. (2018) ‘‘Feeding Hungry Children’: The Growth of Charitable Breakfast Clubs and Holiday Hunger Projects in the UK.’ Children & Society 32(3): 244-254
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. and Green, M. (2016) ‘Austerity, welfare reform and the rising use of food banks by children in England and Wales’, Area
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2016) ‘Food insecurity and the rise of food charity: issues and challenges’, Geography, 101, 1
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2015) ‘Britain’s hunger crisis: where’s the social policy?’, in Irving, Z., Fenger, M. and Hudson, J. (eds) Social Policy Review 27, Policy Press: Bristol, 13-32
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. and Dowler, E. (2015) ‘Review Article: Hunger, Food Charity and Social Policy – Challenges Faced by the Emerging Evidence Base’, Social Policy and Society, 14, 3, 497-506
  • Dowler, E. and Lambie-Mumford, H. (2015) ‘How can households eat in austerity? Challenges for social policy in the UK’, Social Policy and Society, 14, 3, 411-416
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. and Dowler, E. (2014) ‘Rising use of “food aid” in the United Kingdom’, British Food Journal, 116, 9, 1418-1425
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2013) ‘‘Every town should have one’: Emergency food banking in the UK’, Journal of Social Policy, 42, 1, 73-89
  • Lambie-Mumford, H. (2013) ‘Food poverty and regeneration in the UK: Learning from the New Deal for Communities programme’, Community Development Journal, 48 (4): 540-554.
  • Kneafsey, M., Dowler, E., Lambie-Mumford , H., Inman, I. and Collier, R. (2013) ‘Consumers and Food Security: Uncertain or Empowered?’, Journal of Rural Studies, 29, 101–112
  • Dowler, E., Kneafsey, M., Lambie, H., Inman, A., Collier, R. (2011) ‘Thinking about ‘food security’: engaging with UK consumers’, Critical Public Health, 21, 4, 403-416

Selected policy reports