FareShare appeals to meat industry

- Published: 14 December, 2011

The food charity FareShare is calling on the meat industry to work with it to redistribute surplus product to thousands of people facing hunger in the UK.

FareShare is the UK’s largest food redistribution charity, fighting hunger across the country by delivering in-date quality surplus food to disadvantaged communities. Its food reaches 35,500 people in the UK every day, with 6,000 in London alone.

The charity rescues in-date, quality surplus food that is destined to go to landfill, because it has no commercial value to the food industry due to excess of production, wrong predictions, labelling errors and expired marketing campaigns. In 2011 FareShare rescued 3,600 tonnes of food, which contributed towards 8.6 million meals – but the charity says there is more that needs to be done in order to tackle both food poverty and food surplus, especially in the meat sector.

Business development manager Christina Ajayi said: “The meat FareShare is currently supplied with is not in a consistent volume and we are looking to work more closely with the industry to help them become part of the FareShare movement. This will help FareShare not only boost the supply of meat and meat products into its Community Food Network of 700 local charities, but expand to help more people over a larger geographic network.

“The production of meat is a volume business, so FareShare is aware that after the boning, jointing and packaging process has been completed there will be surplus packaged meat products. We are asking companies to sign a pledge to work with FareShare as an outlet for this surplus.”

FareShare is already working with Brakes, which supplies the charity with short-dated but perfectly edible meat and meat products, such as chicken, meat pies and sandwich fillings, and Sainsbury’s, which supplies FareShare with chilled and frozen meat products.

“FareShare needs more ambassadors from within the meat industry to promote its work and the idea of being a sustainable and environmentally friendly solution to waste with an immense social impact,” said Ajayi.

“Working in partnership with FareShare can help the meat industry reduce its landfill costs, work towards becoming more sustainable, while supporting thousands disadvantaged people within our local communities.”

For more information, visit www.fareshare.org.uk or call 0207 394 2468