Rausings launch £3.5mn fund to support food banks
Melanie May | 17 November 2022 | News
The Julia and Hans Rausing Trust has launched a £3.5million to help food banks across the UK with the cost of living crisis.
The new FoodBank Fund is part of a larger £10 million grants programme from the Trust to support charities and food banks across the UK in tackling the growing food poverty crisis, including £3.5 million to the Trussell Trust and £1.7 million to FareShare.
The Fund is open to all food banks across the UK. Applications opened yesterday and will close on 6 December with funding to be made available before the deadline date, with grants starting from £500. The Fund hopes to have distributed all funds to successful applicants before Christmas.
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Julia and Hans Rausing said:
“Food banks are facing an unprecedented crisis with demand reaching record levels. For the first time, they are giving away more food than they are receiving through donations which shows the gravity of the situation. Furthermore, in many cases, they are seeing significant increases in running costs compared to last year.
“For this reason we are donating a total of £10 million to food charities of which £3.5 million is via an emergency open application ‘Foodbank Fund’ to help as many food banks as possible support their local communities.”
In addition to the open application and Trussell Trust grants, Julia and Hans Rausing are supporting the following food related charities:
- FareShare: Having previously worked with FareShare and their food distribution network, Julia and Hans Rausing are donating £1.7 million to develop new food processing and freezing technologies to enable surplus fresh food to be stored instead of wasted.
- FoodCycle: Julia and Hans Rausing are donating £325,000 to FoodCycle to enable the charity to keep open its welcoming spaces as part of its ‘meet, eat and have conversations’ programme across London & the South East and the West Midlands.
- Feeding Britain: £200,000 will go towards providing urgent support to 20 of its affordable food clubs and pantries across the UK.
Julia and Hans Rausing are donating a further £775,000 to local food charities in London, Gloucestershire and East Cheshire where they have local connections.
Lindsay Boswell, CEO at FareShare said:
“The cost of living crisis has seen demand for our food skyrocket, at a time when millions of people are being forced into food poverty. For many, the soaring cost of living is a bigger financial crisis than the pandemic. We’re incredibly grateful for the generosity of Julia and Hans Rausing, whose donation will make a huge impact on getting more good-to-eat surplus food to people who need it, rather than letting in go to waste.”
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About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.