A quarter of a billion meals redistributed by Fareshare

The UK’s biggest charity fighting hunger and food waste, FareShare, has revealed that it redistributed the staggering equivalent of a quarter of a billion meals throughout the Covid pandemic.

FareShare takes delivery of surplus good-to-eat food, which is unsold or unwanted by the food industry, sorts it in one of its 30 regional warehouses, and passes it onto a network of nearly 10,500 charities and charity groups.

These organisations then turn this nutritious food into meals for vulnerable families and individuals.

Between March 23, 2020, when national lockdown measures were first announced by the UK Government, and February 24 this year, when legal restrictions relating to Covid-19 ended, FareShare provided 105,000 tonnes of food to people going hungry across the UK. That’s the equivalent of 250 million meals.

This good-to-eat surplus food came from across the food industry as suppliers and retailers faced the uncertainty of foodservice shutdowns, regional lockdowns, changing customer habits and challenging supply chains.

It was the support of Manchester United and England footballer Marcus Rashford at the start of the first lockdown, over FareShare’s campaign to highlight the plight of children dependent on free school meals, that helped catapult the charity into the national limelight.

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare CEO, said: “A quarter of a billion meals is testament to the incredible hard work of every single one of FareShare’s volunteers, members of staff, food partners, donors, business partners and all our supporters, during what was an incredibly challenging time for everyone.”

He added: “I would like to thank every single individual, food business, funder, volunteer and staff member who helped to support the FareShare network face into the pandemic, when the vulnerable communities who rely on charitable support across the country needed it most.

“But despite the end of Covid restrictions, the demand for our food remains as high as during the pandemic, with that demand exceeding supply.”

Rises in the cost of living thought to be one of the main factors in the continuing high demand for surplus food.

Seven million people (including two million children) are said to be in food poverty in the UK.

But despite that, two million tonnes of good-to-eat surplus food is wasted across the food industry each year.

FareShare is currently surveying its network of more than 10,500 charities and community groups about the impact of the cost-of-living crisis and will be releasing the findings later.