Feeding the needy is now a highly motivated activity. Groups across the country gather and distribute precious surplus food from Supermarkets, Farms, Food producing factories etc.
This week, The English Apple Man features City Harvest where my friend and former Executive Chair of The National Fruit Show Sarah Calcutt is CEO.
Sarah brings her 'positive energy' to her new role leading this dynamic provider of healthy food to the needy in London.
City Harvest London rescues nutritious surplus food from farms, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, and delivers it, for free, to over 123,000 a week via organisations feeding those facing food poverty. City Harvest rescues food, people, and the planet by preventing food waste, providing life-changing support to communities across London through food, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from waste.
City Harvest is London's first last-mile food rescue organisation, founded in 2014 after operating for 4 years as UR4Driving project which was run by Mark Harvey and Bruce Marquart. A group of individuals, including Laura Winningham OBE (CEO), began the organisation to address high levels of unused, but perfectly edible, food surplus that was being wasted by food businesses across London.
Click on: City Harvest story and Video
Last month, the government announced a new £15 million fund to prevent thousands of tonnes of food that might otherwise go to waste be sourced and delivered to those who need it most.
Sarah Calcutt, City Harvest CEO, was interviewed on BBC Radio London about the potential benefits that the new £15m government fund could have in our mission to rescue food, people and the planet.
With an estimated 330,000 tonnes of edible food either wasted or repurposed as animal feed before leaving farm gates every year, charities like City Harvest could put this waste to better use with that redistribution process.
Across the UK, the cost-of-living crisis has created a food emergency. Currently, 1 in 5 people in London are struggling to afford to eat, yet 1/3 of all food goes to waste. City Harvest rescues nutritious food from going to waste and we need your help to get it to those communities who rely on our support.
Last week The English Apple Man caught up with Sarah via zoom, early on Monday morning and already busy with her responsibilities at City Harvest, where she has been CEO since October 2022.
Sarah is very passionate about the service they are delivering to so many residents of deprived areas of London.
City Harvest is located at Acton and the site has a warehouse of 14,500 square feet with a 'Chiller' holding 50 pallets
CH employs 68 full time staff and over the last 12 months received 32,000 hours of volunteer time.
"A number of our community volunteers live in hostels (they are effectively homeless and are waiting for more permanent housing) many hostels are closed 7am - 7pm and so some come to us for the day, we give them 3 meals if needed; they help in the warehouse for a working day, make friends, help others and we hope it is part of a healing process for them".
It is clear, the availability of volunteers is critical to the success of Foodbanks and Sarah told me "Corporate volunteers are given paid days by their employer as part of social impact measures within ESG strategies. The companies also make a donation to CH for providing a great team day out of the office, a day spent grading produce & packing deliveries of food".
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) is shorthand for an investing principle that prioritizes environmental issues, social issues, and corporate governance. Investing with ESG considerations is sometimes referred to as responsible investing or, in more proactive cases, impact investing.
Donors
Sarah continues: "We have around 550 food donors in total, with 150 tonnes of food sourced on average per week, and circa 15.2 million meals worth of food delivered by the end of the current financial year. Over the 10 years lifetime of City Harvest, 70 million meals have been sourced and delivered to foodbanks".
City Harvest deliver to registered Food Banks - All community partners are audited by our community team to ensure that they are registered with an EHO, (Environmental Health Officer) provide referral services, are a regular service.
EHO hygiene inspections ensure food businesses meet legal food safety and hygiene standards".
Economics
City Harvest running costs = £5 million per annum.
"We have no income from government. The end of post Covid and economic measures mean that government spending in social impact at street level has fallen by 32% as these schemes have come to an end" Post covid recovery funding has ended now, organisations like City Harvest are dependent on fundraising from the general public and applications to trusts and foundations and the generosity of altruistic individuals.
National Insurance (NI) increase in April has paused recruitment for many organisations in our sector, coupled with greater challenges in fundraising, budgets are stretched and every £ counts.
£15 million Fund /promised by Sunak to Food Banks nationally honoured by Starmer
Click on: Government news release spare food
Extract from press release
To strengthen the links between farms and charities and help solve the problem of farm food waste, a new scheme will see grants starting from £20,000 made available to the not-for-profit food redistribution sector in England. Throughout the year but especially over Christmas, the season of goodwill, this will help organisations like homeless shelters, food banks and charities fight hunger.
Sarah is chairing the steering committee for a collaborative bid on behalf of the whole sector, bringing together City Harvest, The Bread and Butter Thing, the Xcess network, the Felix Project and FareShare to benefit the whole redistribution sector.
City Harvest - operational overview
"We work with all levels of the food supply chain. We partner with farms and growers, manufacturers, retailers, wholesalers, and distributors all across the UK, who flag when stock is either close to its shelf life, has been forecasted incorrectly, forms part of a development trial, has incorrect packaging, or sadly just doesn't make the grade or specification due to seasonal challenges. Fully compliant with food safety and distribution law, we require the product is labelled with a title, ingredient declaration and allergen information, and a 'use by' / 'best before' date, and then we're able to take it and redistribute it. We have a strict chill chain and ensure our community partners are fully food safety accredited with the correct storage facilities to ensure the chill chain is not broken at any stage. Fresh produce is obviously simpler.
We attract staff from the food, hospitality, and logistics industry, so we more than understand that dealing with surplus stock is a less of a priority than selling stock for profit. Our team integrates into your operation to spot opportunity and organise logistics, making it as slick as possible from day one.
We have a fleet of branded City Harvest vans that can collect stock locally to our depots.
Alternatively, we can arrange for stock to be delivered to us. We have several great partnerships with third-party hauliers who will collect anywhere in the UK for us. We're happy to accept short shelf-life food.
We have dedicated team of volunteers who sort through all our donations. Our community partners receive the food in just a matter of hours/days.
We love to shine a sustainability spotlight on the social and climate impact that companies make by partnering with us. Our impact reports allow you to show your stakeholders the immediate impact to people and planet with case studies and statistics of who your food is supporting. We report on the number of kgs rescued, meals provided and kgs of GHG prevented.
City Harvest puts surplus food to good use in a sustainable way by delivering free food for over 1.2 million meals a month to those in need.
Click on: MARVIN "The Office" Video
Why Organise a Food Drive?
1 in 4 households with children currently face food poverty. Hosting a food collection in your workplace, school or community centre is a brilliant way for everyone to get involved and help make a difference in our local communities.
Click on: FOOD DRIVE VIDEO
The English Apple Man Comments
As we concluded our interview, Sarah emphasised the plight of those unfortunate to live in an area of deprived circumstances. The issue goes way beyond the affordability of fresh, wholesome food. The number of families on poor diet, has been underlined eloquently by the eminent food writer Henry Dimbleby in his book RAVENOUS.
I quote: In modern Britain, the way we eat is one of the clearest markers of inequality!
"You can actually see it with the naked eye. A diet of cheap junk food has the peculiar quality that it can make you simultaneously overweight and undernourished. Children in the poorest areas of England are both 'fatter and significantly shorter' than those in the richest areas at the age 10-11. (This is a big enough problem to have an impact at international level. The average 5 year-old in the UK is shorter than their peers in nearly all other high-income countries")
British girls are the second shortest in the wealthy world. British boys are the shortest! (2019 data)
Education
"There is a strong correlation between income, educational attainment, and fruit and vegetable consumption.
That is all for this week
Take care
The English Apple Man