The headline number is 2.6 million. That is the number of emergency food parcels distributed by Trussell Trust food banks in 2024. It is, in one sense, a fall — down 12% from the peak in 2023, and 18% from the highest point on record. Falling inflation and fewer job losses have made a real difference to the number of people reaching crisis point. But the Trussell Trust is not celebrating. Because 2.6 million is still 45% higher than 2019 levels. Because the people who are still coming to food banks are increasingly those in the deepest hardship — people who need help more than once, people for whom a food parcel is not a one-off emergency but a recurring necessity. The fall in numbers has not been accompanied by a fall in the depth of need. The Trussell Trust's analysis is clear: the food bank system was never meant to be a permanent feature of British life. It was meant to be an emergency response to a temporary crisis. The fact that it has become structural — that hundreds of thousands of families in one of the world's wealthiest countries cannot reliably feed themselves — is a moral failure that no amount of statistical improvement can obscure. For churches that run or support food banks, this data is both encouragement and challenge. The encouragement: what you are doing is making a difference. The challenge: the work is not done, and the deeper question of why so many people need food banks in the first place demands a political answer, not just a charitable one.