For our recent member satisfaction survey we pledged to donate £10 to the charity FareShare for every survey completed, thank you again to everyone who took part in it. We are pleased to report that this has resulted in an amazing 1,880 meals being redistributed to those in need.
Luke Wiechula from FareShare tells us more about the essential work they do and how our donation will help:
Over a million meals for vulnerable people
FareShare is the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors. It is made up of 17 independent organisations and together we take good quality surplus food from across the food industry and redistribute it to almost 11,000 frontline charities and community groups.
The food we redistribute is nutritious, in-date and good to eat. It reaches school breakfast clubs, older people’s lunch clubs, homeless shelters, and community cafes. Every week we provide enough food to create over a million meals for vulnerable people.
At FareShare it costs us 25p to get a meal to a vulnerable member of our society, this means that the generous contribution from B2B Compliance is enough to allow FareShare to redistribute a phenomenal 1,880 meals!
Providing an emergency response
We are providing an emergency response during the COVID-19 crisis, delivering vital food supplies to frontline organisations providing a lifeline to those most in need. These include older people and those with serious health conditions, and families facing severe financial hardship.
Since the crisis began, over 1,000 new charities have been signed up to get food so far, with the majority of these charities providing food parcels for vulnerable people and families. Most of the existing 11,000 charities we support are adapting their services to deliver food to people’s doorsteps or create safe collection points. Some charities, for example homeless hostels and refuges, are operating as normal but are under increased strain as many are seeing a drop in voluntary income and staff shortages.
We’re now tripling the amount of food we’re getting out to frontline charities since lockdown began. To date 11 of our regional centres have secured additional warehouse space and the number of charities who have applied to receive food from FareShare has more than tripled in the last few months.
The importance of funding
We need emergency funding to do more than we’ve ever done under pressure. We have the capacity to double the amount of food we get out to vulnerable people during this crisis but to do this we need help.
Donations help us to run our delivery vans, support hundreds more frontline organisations to get food out to vulnerable people and pay for additional food storage facilities (e.g freezers, warehouses) to meet this unprecedented demand.
Importantly we need funding not only to meet the additional demand during the crisis, but also in the period that will follow as restrictions are lifted. In the event of a recession, charities and community groups providing food will need to support many more people facing financial hardship and food insecurity.
In addition, the charity sector looks set to see a huge drop in voluntary income (NCVO survey estimated 48%) so a reliable, affordable source of food for charities feeding people will be needed more than ever. To make a donation that will support our services, please go to our homepage and follow the instructions after clicking the donate button.
If you, or someone you know, works in the food industry we urgently need bulk donations of rice, pasta, tea, coffee and tins from food businesses. If you can help please go to our website for more information.
We are seeking donations of ambient and packet food from food businesses, as we anticipate many more charities will need to supply food parcels to those who are self-isolating. Please email foodoffers@fareshare.org.uk with the name of the organisation and the offer. We also still require a full range of surplus fresh and frozen foods.
What can business and government do to help?
Companies can donate to our emergency appeal and help us cover the operational costs to help get food to vulnerable people. You can donate online here, or if you would rather make a donation via another method please email us on corporate.fundraising@fareshare.org.uk
90% of edible surplus food in the UK supply chain is wasted, when it should be being eaten by people. FareShare last year received trial funding from government to enable the food industry to divert its surplus food to charities at no extra cost. This fund helped FareShare to unlock and redistribute an additional 2,200 tonnes of fresh food, including fruit and veg – enough to provide 5.2 million meals for vulnerable people.
We are now calling on government to accept the lessons from this trial and make available £5 million to support farmers, growers, manufacturers and distributors to safely and quickly divert food to FareShare without incurring additional costs – particularly during this critical time of unprecedented demand.