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

food waste Food loss and waste is food that is not eaten. The causes of food waste or loss are numerous and occur throughout the food system, during production, processing, distribution, retail and food service sales, and consumption. Overall, about o ...

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 Shelf life is the length of time that a commodity may be stored without becoming unfit for use, consumption, or sale. In other words, it might refer to whether a commodity should no longer be on a pantry shelf (unfit for use), or no longer on a ...

; in 2019/20 it obtained and redistributed over 24,000 tonnes of food which would have otherwise gone to waste or

landfill A landfill site, also known as a tip, dump, rubbish dump, garbage dump, or dumping ground, is a site for the disposal of waste materials. Landfill is the oldest and most common form of waste disposal, although the systematic burial of the waste ...

. 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 J Sainsbury plc, trading as Sainsbury's, is the second largest chain of supermarkets in the United Kingdom, with a 14.6% share of UK supermarket sales. Founded in 1869 by John James Sainsbury with a shop in Drury Lane, London, the company wa ...

and

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

History and partnerships

In February 2018, the charity announced a three-year £20 million partnership with

ASDA Asda Stores Ltd. () (often styled as ASDA) is a British supermarket chain. It is headquartered in Leeds, England. The company was founded in 1949 when the Asquith family merged their retail business with the Associated Dairies company of York ...

and

The Trussell Trust The Trussell Trust is an Non-governmental organization, NGO and charity that works to end the need for food banks in the United Kingdom. It supports a network of over 1,200 food bank centres to provide emergency food and compassionate, practical su ...

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 Homeless shelters are a type of homeless service agency which provide temporary residence for homeless individuals and families. Shelters exist to provide residents with safety and protection from exposure to the weather while simultaneously re ...

, 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

and

Co-op A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...

, 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 Marcus Rashford (born 31 October 1997) is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Manchester United and the England national team. Considered one of the best players in the world, he is known for his explosive ath ...

-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 Henry Richard Melville Dimbleby (born May 1970) is a British businessman and cookery writer who is a co-founder of Leon Restaurants and the Sustainable Restaurant Association. He was appointed lead non-executive board member of the Department ...

. 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 England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of City of Salford, Salford to ...

professional footballer

; 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 ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'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 DEFRA may refer to: * Deficit Reduction Act of 1984, United States law * Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, United Kingdom government department {{Disambiguation ...

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.

References

{{Reflist

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

History and partnerships

Awards

See also

References

External links