Asda funding provides almost £2m for foodbanks

More than 90 food banks across the UK have been awarded a share of almost £2m of funding through the Asda Fight Hunger Create Change campaign. The funding comes 12 months after the launch of the three-year campaign, which is a £20m partnership between the retailer, the Trussell Trust and FareShare. Over the first year, the partnership has funded the first phase of in-depth research into food bank use, and supported the development of the Trussell Trust’s advocacy work for long-term solutions to the drivers of food bank use. It has also provided 5 million additional meals for people in need through: 3 new FareShare warehouses, enabling the distribution of an additional 1.8 million meals a year More than 2.2 million meals to community groups, including children’s breakfast clubs, women’s refuges and elderly lunch clubs 150,000 meals donated to FareShare’s network of local charities from unsold surplus food More than 1 million meals donated to food banks through customer donations from Asda stores Through the partnership, a pilot linking FareShare and the Trussell Trust to deliver fresh surplus food to food banks has also been developed. More than a thousand people have already benefited from a greater variety of fresh fruit and vegetables in addition to the standard three-day emergency parcel. The new funding for food banks is part of the £20m partnership. Over the three years, the partnership will help provide more support to people referred to food banks, fund a three-year research project into the drivers of food bank use, provide an additional 24 million meals every year as well as one million fresh food parcels to people across the UK. Andy Murray, Chief Customer Officer at Asda said: “I’m incredibly proud of the progress we’ve made to change the face of food poverty in the UK. As we move into the second year of our campaign, we’ll continue to provide not just meals for people but support to help them out of poverty, and we thank our customers and colleagues for their ongoing support in our challenge to fight hunger.” The Trussell Trust’s chief executive Emma Revie said: “While we work in the long-term to tackle the structural issues that lock people in poverty, food banks will be able to provide even more vital support to people referred. We’ve never been in a position to support our network to deliver help to this extent before – the nature of investment is unprecedented. These grants will provide crucial additional resources to food banks, increasing the diversity and breadth of the services they can offer people in crisis and tackle the root causes of poverty.”  Lindsay Boswell, CEO of FareShare, said: “The Fight Hunger Create Change programme is already enabling unprecedented transformation for the UK’s charities and community groups. Thanks to Asda’s funding FareShare has been able to open new warehouses, lease more vans and – most importantly - service more charities with more vital nutritious meals, ensuring surplus food is diverted to those who need it most. It has also enabled FareShare to work in close partnership with the Trussell Trust to make a real lasting impact in fighting hunger, as we roll out redistribution of fresh surplus fruit and veg to its network of food banks.”

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