The ‘Let’s Make a Meal of It’ campaign will run nationwide in April involving millions of customers who will be able to donate at M&S, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose. For every £1 raised it will provide five meals for people facing hunger.
The food industry is also embarking on a ‘groundbreaking’ project led by Sainsbury’s to use spare capacity in lorries to get food to charities. Eleven million people go hungry in the UK, three million of them children. Yet redistribution charities trying to tackle this hunger face two main challenges:
- They need more food to keep up with demand.
- Transportation of the food remains a significant cost burden.
The food industry is joining forces to help address both of these issues at scale, through a pioneering coalition, called Alliance Food Sourcing (AFS), which was created as part of the Coronation Food Project. Fifty leading food businesses are already involved.
The food businesses are investing, in two ways: to secure more sources of food for frontline charities and by innovating to save transportation costs for charities, using spare capacity in lorries.
Simon Roberts, chief executive of Sainsbury’s and president of the IGD, said: "We believe that good food should be for everyone and are proud of our continued involvement in this campaign. It shows how working together as an industry can help drive meaningful change and tackle food poverty."
AFS focuses on the 4.6 million tonnes of food that goes to waste across the food supply chain every year, before it even reaches people's plates. So much of this food is edible and can be rescued and recovered for people in need.
The AFS coalition has already provided over ten million meals through such innovations, giving frontline charities a more predictable and regular source of food. Its ambition is to get more food businesses on board and provide 30 million meals a year by 2028.
Nicky Robinson, director of Alliance Food Sourcing, added: “It’s great to see so many leading food businesses coming together within AFS, but we urge others to join us. The opportunity to do good is vast. By partnering up, thousands of tonnes of good, surplus food are already being rescued from the food supply chain, reducing waste and providing meals for the most vulnerable in our society - often by making relatively simple changes.”