‘The funding will significantly enhance our ability to collect and redistribute surplus food directly from farms’
A Manchester-based charity working to feed those in need is celebrating a funding windfall of more than £1 million.
The Bread and Butter Thing – headquartered in Trafford Park, Stretford – is a food redistribution charity with almost 150 hubs located across the country. It works to redistribute some 19,000 tonnes of surplus food directly from farms to shelters, food banks and others charities in England.
The charity said more than 13 per cent of the population currently experience food ‘insecurity’. Through its work, essential food supplies are delivered to some of the UK’s most deprived communities.
The charity has revealed it has been awarded a total of £1,264,774 in funding to increase its capacity to re-distribute surplus food from British farms – effectively feeding more mouths.
The windfall is from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as part of its Tackling Food Surplus at the Farm Gate programme. The Bread and Butter Thing is one of 12 recipients of Government funding.
The charity said every year, an estimated 330,000 tonnes of edible food is either wasted or repurposed as animal feed before leaving farm gates. Members can access a weekly shop worth £40 for just £8 – including ambient, chilled, and fresh produce.
The charity operates food clubs from Northumberland to Maidstone, running 52 hubs across Greater Manchester and Cheshire, and has more than 31,590 members.
Mark Game, founder of The Bread and Butter Thing said: “The investment will be used to expand logistics infrastructure including vehicles, refrigeration and packing facilities and to strengthen on-the-ground relationships with growers, particularly in key agricultural areas.
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“The funding will significantly enhance our ability to collect and redistribute surplus food directly from farms, preventing edible produce from going to waste and instead redirecting it to hard-working families in our network.
“It will also increase our operational capacity at farm level, enabling us to intercept additional surplus produce. By investing in infrastructure, we can now work more closely with farmers to unlock hard-to-reach produce that would otherwise go to waste, ensuring it reaches people who need it most.”
Grants totaling £13.6m have been awarded as part of the new scheme, with City Harvest, FareShare UK, Food in Community, The Cedarwood Trust, WRAP and Feedbank Global also benefiting.
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