Food bank benefits from project to secure supplies
An East Kilbride food bank has benefitted from an initiative to help them get the vital supplies they need.
Bankuet – the UK’s first online food donation platform – has been working alongside East Kilbride Community Food Bank prior to and throughout lockdown.
But with demand for the food bank’s lifeline services jumping significantly – particularly during the first lockdown – Bankuet’s help has proved more valuable than ever. Launched in 2019, Bankuet raises funds through online donations to buy supplies in bulk, negotiating with suppliers to ensure the money goes further, before delivering the items to the food banks. The main aim is to help ensure food banks have the essential supplies they need, when they need them.
Karen Dornan, from East Kilbride Community Food Bank, which is a partnership of local churches, told the News the initiative had been a “massive support”.
She added: “We rely on donations from the general public and while we appreciate every one, we don’t always get the supplies we need.
“With Bankuet, we tell them what we need, people can donate to them directly and they select the items we are running low on, and retailers deliver to us. It save us time and effort as we aren’t having to go out and shop for items ourselves.”
Food banks provide Bankuet with a shopping list of items they need and these items are then delivered to the food banks by the retailers.
Karen said the food bank are continuing to see demand rise and when furlough support comes to an end, they expect this to continue.
“We are still as busy as ever – although the first lockdown was probably slightly worse,” Karen told us.
“Over the last few months there hasn’t been much relief. People have lost their jobs and they find themselves in a situation they never imagined.
“We have definitely seen an increase in new registrations in the last few months
“Often people who come to us have nowhere to turn, they don’t want to turn to family or friends, they feel they have exhausted that option, or they don’t have anyone that can help.”
Bankuet CEO Robin Ferris said the inspiration behind their efforts was simply to help tackle food poverty and feed hungry people.
He told the News: “Whilst volunteering at a local food bank I saw generous donors bring in lots of pasta and rice but not all of those other essential items that people need in daily life.
“I suddenly realised there was room for innovative technology to plug that gap and a modern solution for tackling food poverty – so Bankuet was born.
“It’s been a very busy year for us as a business – we have had to scale up massively in order to get food banks the vital supplies they needed throughout the pandemic.”
Bankuet is running a Scotland Spring campaign, Give Food Give Joy, to raise more money so they can supply essential items to various food banks in East Kilbride.