FOOD CONNECTION PROGRAMME FARESHARE AND FOODCYCLE

PROJECT NAME

ORGANISATION /GROUP

FOOD CONNECTION PROGRAMME FARESHARE AND FOODCYCLE www.fareshare.org.uk/food–access

The Food Connection Programme connects small grassroots community organisations with supermarkets to rescue surplus food to prepare nutritious meals for the vulnerable, socially isolated and hungry.

Fareshare and Foodcycle are food connectors with intimate knowledge of supermarket systems, facilitating access to untapped surplus food for local community organisations.

FareShare and FoodCycle are creating a framework to empower local communities to collect surplus food in an effective, safe and efficient way that can be replicated across the country.

Innovation

This is an unprecedented collaboration; with supermarkets adapting operating culture’s to access food wasted at the back of store and connect it with disadvantaged people. Local supermarkets and charities are working closer together strengthening local community links.

Three key elements:

Certification – providing voluntary organisations with a permit to show they have suitable facilities to receive surplus food.

Connection – linking up potential organisations with their local store that has bought into the scheme.

Education – both of the retailers, on appropriate storage of surplus food for collection, and charities on receipt and preparation of short life food.

Impact

5,066 kg of food was collected by FareShare – Food Connection Network. Net saving of 14,004 kg of CO2 eq. (14 tonnes of CO2 eq). Five Retail stores donated goods. 294 hours of volunteer and staff time to redistribute goods.

Other Social Impacts

An improvement in 12 stores waste management practises moving food up the waste hierarchy by feeding people first. Increased monitoring of waste from retailers, improve management practices, reducing waste and costs.

I hate throwing this stuff away. I understand it has to be fresh each day for our customers but it’s still good food. When we started the café here sometimes we had two bin bags of food per day.

member of Waitrose staff

During the pilot

15,928 nutritious meals prepared. Five charities took part in the trial but 15 signed up. Developed toolkits and templates for charities and retailers.

The Future

The rising interest in this initiative from WRAP, the British Retail Consortium and CEO’s of supermarkets is giving The Food Connection Programme the confidence to look at the future potential for rolling this out.

There is potential for this model to become widespread throughout the UK.