Central England Co-op donation to FareShare East Anglia helps create nearly 875,000 meals for people in need

Posted by rob smyth | Published: 28/08/2020

A Central England Co-op donation to support a vital food redistribution charity help people impacted by COVID-19 has resulted in it being able to create 873,000 meals for vulnerable people in just three months.

Central England Co-op handed over the five-figure sum to FareShare East Anglia at the start of lockdown to pay for extra transport and staffing costs to make sure that more emergency food packages continue to be delivered to those in need.

This has helped the organisation redistribute 367 tonnes of food in the local community to 102 different organisations – a rise of 350% compared to this time last year.

Hannah Gallimore, Corporate Responsibility Manager at Central England Co-op, said: “We are delighted to see that our donation to FareShare East Anglia has made such a massive difference during these difficult times.
“We are extremely proud of our long-term relationship with FareShare and were pleased to be able to extend the work we already do to ensure that those impacted by the Coronavirus could continue to access vital food.”

FareShare East Anglia is based out of Ipswich and works with 71 local charities to stop good food from going to waste and redistributing it to charities and community groups across the East of England.

This comes after the retailer previously made a similar five-figure donation to FareShare Midlands to again cover transport and staffing costs for the vital organisation.

It has also recently donated a further £100,000 as part of the its Summer Support for Kids campaign to help with work to combat holiday hunger among youngsters.

The retailer already works with FareShare Midlands on a ground-breaking food redistribution project that sees all best before food items and non-food goods that cannot be sold taken to the Society’s Food Distribution Centre, in Leicester, where it is then delivered to FareShare who send them to support dozens of local charities.

People can keep up to date with what is happening in their local community by visiting a dedicated online hub at www.centralengland.coop/updates

Notes to editors

About Central England Co-operative

Central England Co-operative is one of the largest independent retail co-operative societies in the UK with interests in food, funeral, floral and property investment.

Co-operatives have always been there for their communities; they were formed to protect them and help them flourish. 

Our 7,900 colleagues who serve Members and customers work hard to ensure that co-operative values, principles and spirit flow through everything we do to help support and improve our local communities.

Owned by hundreds of thousands of Members, we have over 430 trading outlets across 16 counties including West Midlands, Warwickshire, Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Rutland, Nottinghamshire, Northamptonshire, Lincolnshire, West Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. 

We are proud of our reputation for ethical business practices and corporate responsibility.

We invest a percentage of our trading profit into local communities through our Community Dividend Fund scheme, have donated over £1.3 million to our corporate charity partner Dementia UK and also operate a pioneering food redistribution partnership with FareShare Midlands so unsold food goes to those in need.

Visit www.centralengland.coop for more information or follow us on Facebook or Twitter using @mycoopfood

Press office contacts: Rob Smyth and James Brindle

Phone - 01543 421390

Email - publicrelations@centralengland.coop