Every year retailers in Britain waste 1.6m tones of food. This in a country where 5% of adults cannot afford fresh fruit daily and one in twenty mothers go without food to meet the needs of their children. Most of this food goes to landfill, so, not only is perfectly good food being wasted, it’s damaging the environment too. Doesn’t make sense, does it?
We wanted to put a stop to this in our local area, so we (a group of Oxfordshire people) set up a new charity, ‘re-plenish’, the Oxford food bank.
Since our launch in July, we’ve set up a daily collection of food from supermarkets. We then distribute this food to projects in the city, helping to provide over 1,000 meals per week to people who really need them.
re-plenish is run by volunteers and we’re reliant on local people and local businesses for support, so if you can help, we’d love to have you on board.
Keep an eye on our blog and find out how we’re getting on.
Tags: food bank, re-plenish launch
What a wonderful thing to do.
There is so much waste, glad it is being put to such good use
Is the food in the projects always used in the projects or do the projects pass it on to people they know in need.
Margaret
Thanks for your kind words. In answer to your question, the food is always used at the projects. This is part of our agreement with the supermarkets which donate the food.