Families turn to food charity to put meals on the table

Each week, a charity in Bradford serves biryani to people in need of a hot meal - but they don't just get food, they also get a sense of community and companionship.

In the past six months, the number of people coming to InTouch Foundation has increased by 30%, and the charity now regularly feeds about 80-100 people each Tuesday evening.

"As you walk through that door you're part of the family," says Osman Gondal, who set up the charity in 2013.

Those using the service sit and eat together, with volunteers joining them.

In the beginning, Gondal and his wife gave out food from their car, but the service quickly changed so that people could socialise too.

"People didn't just come for the food. It was the company and the conversation as well," says Gondal.

"We want to give people some type of regularity when they don't have it in their lives, because we don't know what they've been through.

"Everybody's got a story to tell."

For Hitesh Lad, 53, that story is a relationship breakdown and a loss of money.

"You just don't feel like cooking or doing nothing. It's like you're stuck in a rut," he tell us.

Last year, Lad lost his father.

"This is the kind of place where you can come, you can sort of exchange how you're feeling with people and it just helps you.

"It's a good service."

InTouch supports people with different circumstances and backgrounds, but Gondal says the type of people accessing the service has changed over the past decade.

"It was just single people coming through the door before - now it's families as well.

"Those that are picking up the kids from school they haven't got a meal to put on the table, they bring the kids around as well to get that meal in the evening," he says.

One of the charity's biggest challenges is the level of food insecurity in Bradford.

Food insecurity is the lack of access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food.

A recent study led by researchers at the University of York found that underserved groups in Bradford experience more than double the rate of food insecurity (16.3%) compared with the city's wider population (6.9%).

Giorgia Previdoli, one of the researchers behind Bradford's Food Insecurity Health Needs Assessment (2026), says there are issues around family income and access to opportunities to improve it.

"What families find is that they get almost trapped into situations that cannot improve or can just get worse."

She says this is down to not having access to training and education - or not having childcare to be able to access that.

She adds: "What makes Bradford different at a national level is the young population and the number of children in this population.

"It's a family issue in Bradford. That needs to be taken into consideration.

"Needing help with food is not something that happens for a short period of time and you can you can easily get in but it's very hard to get out of it."

InTouch also supports homeless people, so as well as providing hot food it tries to provide tents and sleeping bags to those who need them.

A woman, who wants to remain anonymous, told us the staff are "very supportive" when people are struggling or need to talk.

Living alone, and with a physical and mental disability she says: "It helps me throughout the week by coming here."

She says she was initially drawn to InTouch three years ago because of the food, but now feels it's also about the social connection.

"I know I can come here and I can communicate with somebody from a similar background," she says.

Faced with higher demand and the potential prospect of having to double its services, Gondal says the dream would be for there to be no need for charities like his.

"I would be happier when there was nobody stood in that queue.

"That's the day I would be the happiest."

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