FareShare

FareShare is a charity network aimed at relieving food poverty and reducing food waste 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.

FareShare only redistributes food inside its use by date; in 2019/20 it obtained and redistributed over 24,000 tonnes of food which would have otherwise gone to waste or landfill. 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.

History and partnerships

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.

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. 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 23 March, 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 £10.5 million grant to buy food to redistribute to English charities during lockdown, which FareShare managed. The Scotland government and Welsh Assembly government granted £2.1 million 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 do not 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 professional footballer Marcus Rashford; indeed, FareShare is partnered with Manchester United and Marcus Rashford.

Awards

In 2010 the charity won "Britain's Most Admired Charity" at the Third Sector awards. In 2017 the charity won "Charity of the Year" at both the Charity Times awards and Third Sector Awards, and was selected for the Telegraph's Christmas Charity Appeal. 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 £15 million of DEFRA funding to 'level the playing field' for the food industry of the cost to redistribute food to vulnerable people, as opposed to 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

*Food waste in the United Kingdom
* Hunger in the United Kingdom
* Poverty in the United Kingdom

References

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External links

FareShare Website

Social welfare charities based in the United Kingdom
Food and the environment
Food security
Organizations established in 2004
2004 establishments in the United Kingdom
Food waste in the United Kingdom
Hunger relief organizations