# Food charity asks government to cover costs of charitable surplus food distribution

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2018/04/05/food-charity-asks-government-cover-costs-charitable-surplus-food-distribution/
- Published: 2018-04-05T10:49:59+01:00
- Author: Howard Lake

**Food charity FareShare is asking the public to support its ‘Feed People First’
campaign to help it deliver an extra 100,000 tonnes of good surplus food to charities
across the country.**

FareShare’s campaign is asking the Government to offset the costs of charitable 
food redistribution which could include re-packing, harvesting, transporting, storage
and handling. If they did this, argues the charities, UK charities that receive 
and redistribute the food could save £150m. These savings could then be reinvested
into their services and feed even more people in need.

## Good food wasted

Every year at least 270,000 tonnes of good food is wasted in UK food production,
[according to WRAP](http://www.wrap.org.uk/content/quantification-food-surplus-waste-and-related-materials-supply-chain)(
2016). This is because for food manufacturers, processors and packers it can be 
more expensive to redistribute good quality surplus food to the charities which 
support the 8.4 million people in the UK who go hungry than it is to send it to 
other processes of disposal.

## Advertisement

 [⌊Feed People First campaign⌉](http://www.feedpeoplefirst.org/)

 

FareShare Chief Executive Lindsay Boswell said: “It’s completely wrong that we have
a situation where it’s cheaper to send thousands of tonnes of good edible food to
anaerobic digestion plants or to animal feed, when there are millions of people 
experiencing food insecurity and regularly skipping meals across the UK right now.

“FareShare redistributes just 5% of the available surplus food, but with that we
help feed half a million people a week – so just imagine what we could do with 100,000
tonnes. This is what France already does, and we know we can do it here too.”

He described the call on the Government to “help us access the food” as “a simple
solution”, and urged the public to [sign the Feed People First petition](http://www.feedpeoplefirst.org).
The petition closes on **3 May 2018**.

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