From consuming to communing: taking a ‘more than food’ approach to understanding food insecurity and its intersection with ethical and sustainable consumption practices in the UK

Post-pandemic, there is renewed interest in understanding experiences of food insecurity within the UK through the lens of community food consumption. This chapter articulates the value of ‘surplus’ food initiatives beyond everyday assumptions. Surplus foods are commonly viewed as waste, as being of poor quality, with high levels of packaging and wastage. This negative framing extends to those consuming surplus; entangling ‘poverty consumers’ and community food initiatives in unsustainable and unethical consumption practices. Whilst critique is necessary, there are coexisting calls for further empirical and conceptual work that articulates the forms of ethical and sustainable food consumption that are also enmeshed within surplus eating practices. In this chapter, what is termed a ‘more than food’ approach is presented, both methodologically and conceptually, as a means of uncovering these additional and alternative facets of community surplus consumption in order to enrich existing food insecurity and ethical and sustainability scholarship.