Having recently celebrated our 10th anniversary of redistributing surplus food; FareShare Cymru want to speak with food and drink businesses who experience issues with food surplus, and want to tackle their carbon footprint.
FareShare Cymru turns an environmental problem into a social solution, by working with partners in the food and drink industry to divert their edible surplus food to vulnerable people around Wales. We work with over 150 community groups and charities, providing them with a regular supply of good, nutritious food that would otherwise have gone to waste. Food surplus arises for any number of reasons such as, but not limited to:
- forecasting errors
- labelling errors
- obsolete seasonal stock
- packaging issues or production trials
This food is still perfectly safe to consume, but would otherwise be wasted.
FareShare Cymru believes this food is always better off going onto plates, and feeding vulnerable people.
In addition to helping some of the most vulnerable people in Wales, donating your surplus food to FareShare prevents it being sent to landfill – the most common destination for food waste. This adds a substantial reduction to your firms’ carbon footprint, meaning that your surplus does good for both people and planet. In 2020-2021 alone, FareShare Cymru rescued some 735 tonnes of food and drink waste, which saved an equivalent 2270 tonnes of CO2 emissions from going into our atmosphere.
In addition to accepting donations of surplus food, FareShare Cymru also welcomes applications for our Surplus with Purpose Cymru fund.
This fund is available to all food and drink businesses in Wales who might otherwise incur losses from donating surplus food to FareShare Cymru. The fund can be used to cover costs including harvesting, labour, packaging, freezing and transporting food. Additionally, we would welcome a discussion with you about how else we might use the fund to encourage donations of surplus food. For example, if your surplus comes in large, catering-sized volumes; we could explore covering the costs associated with repackaging these into smaller, more easily-distributed sizes to maximize its reach. Our mission is to ensure that if firms have food that would go to waste, but could still be used to feed hungry people, that we work with you to prevent waste happening.
To discuss donating your firms’ food surplus, the Surplus with Purpose Cymru fund, or for any other questions please contact Simon Stranks (Food Sourcing Coordinator) at Simon@fareshare.cymru