FareShare SouthWest calls for more support to tackle food poverty in Bristol

The South West’s biggest food charity has called on food suppliers to keep helping them provide food for 50,000 local people in need.

FareShare South West fights hunger and food waste by taking surplus food from suppliers and distributing it to more than 400 frontline charities.

The organisation’s ‘Surplus For Purpose Showcase’ at the United Reform Church on West Street in Bedminster heard how more collaboration is needed to tackle food poverty.

The event brought together the South West’s food suppliers with Bristol mayor Marvin Rees and local charities.

Addressing a crowd which included Ellie King (cabinet member for communities and public health) and Bristol East MP Kerry McCarthy, FareShare South West’s CEO Gene Joyner said it desperately needs more food.

He said: “High energy costs, the war in Ukraine and supply chain challenges mean we’re struggling to meet the scale of demand.

“The charities we work with tell us people are desperately in need and are asking for further support.

“We have another 258 further charities wanting to sign up, representing a further 30,000 local people in need. But we lack enough food to meet to help them. We need more local suppliers to help.”

FareShare South West works with big suppliers like Yeo Valley and smaller partners like Community Farm in Chew Magna.

Speaking to Bristol World at the event, Councillor Ellie King said: “We’ve got a huge amount of food waste in the city and across the country.

“This is such an amazing initiative of us taking control of the narrative in Bristol and redistributing surplus food and making sure it gets to the most vulnerable people in the city.

“I think [food poverty] is disproportionate depending on what part of the city you’re in, so it’s about targeted approaches and making sure we get resources to the areas that really need it.”

Also speaking to Bristol World, MP Kerry McCarthy said the city has ‘food deserts’ - areas where it’s hard to access fresh affordable food.

The MP highlighted research from 2018 which showed Hartcliffe and Withywood were among the most deprived food deserts in the country.

She added: “The mayor’s supported food-growing land in every ward of the city, so we’ve got some really good projects like that.

“It’s about surplus food redistribution which is what Feeding Bristol is doing in partnership with FareShare and trying to remove some of the stigma.

“I think there’s still quite a long way to go, there’s things I need to do at government level, to make sure food does get to people who need it but also to deal with some of the inequities in the food system itself so that people can afford to eat healthily.”

FareShare South West is the largest food redistribution charity in the region, and an independent charity in the FareShare network.

It tackles food poverty by redistributing surplus food to more than 400 frontline charities, schools and community groups.

This is done through partnerships with suppliers and help volunteers who sort food in the warehouses in Bristol and Plymouth and deliver it across the region.