Charity works tirelessly to make sure good food doesn’t go to waste
FARESHARE Yorkshire has been using food to support hundreds of frontline charities.
Over the last five years alone, the staff and volunteers at Yorkshire’s largest food charity have provided enough food for an estimated 20 million meals, all by stopping it going to waste when it became surplus to requirements.
Working with 900 companies to make sure good food doesn’t go to waste, the team has provided 500 different charities with 8,500 tonnes of food since 2017.
This weekly delivery enables each one to save an average of £7,900 a year which they can reinvest in the vital work they perform and enables them to access foods they could never otherwise afford.
Without FareShare Yorkshire one in five of these services would need to stop providing food and another one in five would have to close down altogether according to research undertaken pre-pandemic.
Integral to all of this is the tireless work of some 150 volunteers who have picked, packed and delivered tonnes of food each day in that five-year period.
The hard work that FareShare Yorkshire performs means that services like refuges, soup kitchens and food pantries can each expect to receive up to six tonnes of food each year to protect and enhance their work.
FareShare Yorkshire plays a central role in co-ordinating food aid and access across Barnsley by hosting Barnsley Foodbank Partnership and Good Food Barnsley.
The charity has innovated heavily in recent years, and now operates its own food collection lorries, training programme for the unemployed, training kitchen for volunteer cooks and a dedicated service for frozen surplus foods.
FareShare Yorkshire has been nominated in the Charity of the Year category in the Proud of Barnsley awards.