FareShare

FareShare is a charity network aimed at relieving food poverty and reducing food waste[1] in the UK, which has been running since 1994. It does this by obtaining good quality surplus food from the food industry that would otherwise have gone to waste, and sending it to almost 11,000 charity and community groups across the United Kingdom via the network partners.[2]

This article is about FareShare UK. For FareShare Australia, see FareShare (Australia).
FareShare
MottoFighting hunger, tackling food waste.
Formation1994
TypeCharity
FocusFood waste in the United Kingdom, Food Poverty and Volunteering
HeadquartersUnit 7 Deptford Trading Estate, Blackhorse Road, London SE8 5HY.
Location
Members
Almost 11,000
Lindsay Boswell
Websitewww.fareshare.org.uk

FareShare only redistributes food inside its use by date; in 2019/20 it obtained and redistributed over 24,000[3] tonnes of food which would have otherwise gone to waste or landfill.[2] FareShare works with all sectors of the supply chain; producers, manufacturers and retailers. A number of the major UK food retailers have encouraged their suppliers to work with FareShare to minimise food waste. FareShare has also run successful customer food collections with both Sainsbury's and Tesco.[4] In February 2018, the charity announced a three year £20 million partnership with ASDA and The Trussell Trust with the aim of helping more than one million people out of food poverty over the next three years.[5]

FareShare redistributed food equivalent more than 57 million meals in 2019/20, reaching charities that serve over 934,000 vulnerable people a week. The food FareShare supplies enables the charity sector to avoid £14 million in like for like food costs per year.[2] This food is delivered to a broad range of frontline charities and community groups across the UK including homeless shelters, day centres, women’s refuge centres and children's breakfast clubs.

During the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown in the UK starting on March 23rd, the FareShare network remained open and operational to continue to get food to vulnerable people. It increased its output from the equivalent of nearly 1 million meals per week to over 3.5 million meals per week. Much of this food was surplus that resulted from the overnight closure of the restaurant, pub, hotel and catering trades. A proportion of the food was donated by UK food retailers Tesco and Co-op, and this donation was matched by the UK government with a £10.5m[6] grant to buy food to redistribute to English charities during lockdown, which FareShare managed. The Scotland government and Welsh Assembly government granted £2.1m[7] and £500,000 respectively to also buy food to redistribute. All of this government grant money went on buying food.

FareShare is a founding member of the Marcus Rashford led Child Food Poverty Taskforce who seek the urgent implementation of the three recommendations focused on supporting children in the National Food Strategy published by Henry Dimbleby.

FareShare has been supporting children’s holiday clubs for many years with food as part of its #ActiveAte campaign, whilst raising the profile of the issue of ‘Holiday Hunger’ - where children eligible for a free school lunch don’t have access to this meal during the 13 weeks of school holidays - to a wider national audience. This issue has been championed by its ambassador, England and Manchester United forward Marcus Rashford.

Marcus Rashford

FareShare is partnered with Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford.[8]

Awards

In 2010 the charity won "Britain's Most Admired Charity" at the Third Sector awards.[9] In 2017 the charity won "Charity of the Year" at both the Charity Times awards[10] and Third Sector Awards,[11] and was selected for the Telegraph's Christmas Charity Appeal.[12] In 2019 the charity won the Food and Drink Federation's Campaign of the Year award for the Feed People First campaign, which helped to unlock £15m of DEFRA funding to 'level the playing field' for the food industry of the cost to redistribute food to vulnerable people, vs sending it to landfill or anaerobic digestion. It also won the Charity Times 2019 award for "Corporate National Partnership with a Retailer" and the Business Charity Awards 2019 "Consortium" award with the Trussell Trust and Asda for the Fight Hunger Create Change project.

See also

References
  1. BBC Inside Out
  2. Smithers, Rebecca (28 May 2018). "Huge rise in food redistribution to people in need across UK". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 August 2018.
  3. "What We Do - fighting hunger and food waste". FareShare. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  4. Greg Morgan (2012-09-27). "Food bank: We need more food to feed UK's hungry". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-10-01.
  5. Quinn, Ian (8 February 2018). "Asda set to spend £20m on key food waste charities". The Grocer. Retrieved 2018-08-15.
  6. "£16 million for food charities to provide meals for those in need". GOV.UK. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  7. "Scottish Government pledges further £1.6m to help tackle food insecurity". FareShare. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  8. Association, The Football. "Marcus Rashford speaks on charity aid, lockdown work and looks at England milestones". www.thefa.com. Retrieved 2020-08-05.
  9. Donovan, Tristan (17 March 2010). "Britain's Most Admired Charities". Third Sector. Retrieved 15 March 2016.
  10. "Charity Times Awards". www.charitytimes.com. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  11. webvid.co.uk. "Winners 2017 - Third Sector Awards". Third Sector Awards. Retrieved 2018-01-02.
  12. Reporters, Telegraph (2017-11-10). "Telegraph Christmas Charity Appeal 2017: Our chosen charities". The Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 2018-01-02.


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