Food Aware is Looking for New Suppliers & Partnerships
26th November 2009
Sean Gibbons, Managing Director of Food AWARE CIC, is seeking new contacts either with; groups who need support; for potential partnership working and also for new food donors in order to increase supply.
I’m sure a number of you will be familiar with Food AWARE CIC and have often seen the vans busy with food deliveries around Doncaster supporting over 40 needy projects/communities every week.
Food AWARE is a social enterprise set up to find ways of re-distributing surplus food from landfill or waste, to human consumption or other environmentally friendly means of re-use.
A key objective of the project is to re-distribute healthy 5-a-day produce e.g. tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, fruit etc as this encourages healthier eating. In addition, they are in the process of distributing Food Standards Agency (FSA) leaflets which educate beneficiaries and equip them to make good food choices e.g. Eat Well Plate, 'Best Before' vs 'Use By', Traffic Lights on foods, Salt in food etc.
They are currently collecting and re-distributing over four tonnes of quality-control failing '5-a-day' produce every week in partnership with HumberVHB and Hedon Salads. They also collect and re-distribute a tonne of bread returns from Cooplands Bakers, Doncaster, every week consisting of bread, bread rolls, sandwiches, pastries, cakes etc. This has been an excellent partnership that has been working successfully for over 18 months.
As is often the case, the social enterprise sector in Doncaster works hard ‘behind the scenes’ to help each other.
In addition to the invaluable service provided by Food AWARE, they are often active in the community supporting other social enterprises and Third Sector groups.
They recently collected food donations on behalf of M25 from the Harvest Festivals around Doncaster and have been pro-active in their support to the Higher Rhythm Foundation Flood Aid for those affected by the floods in the Philippines.
It would be much appreciated if you could forward this information on to your networks.; You can e-mail Sean on info@foodawarecic.org.uk, or call him on 07887 750 175.
Take a look at their website:; www.foodawarecic.org.uk for more information.
Notes
Every year 18M tonnes of edible food end up in landfill. There is a high cost as a result:
- Approx 1/3 from producers/ supply chain, 1/3 from retail and 1/3 from households
- Annual value : £23 BILLION [and rising rapidly due to soaring prices]
- Massive environmental damage and landfill costs to dispose
- Many people and families on low incomes/ poverty unable to afford "healthy" foods
- "Food Poverty" and widespread poor health resulting – contributing dually in mal-nutrition and obesity levels
For more details you may like to visit the excellent www.lovefoodhatewaste.com website.
