London’s biggest food charity has warned it will not be able to meet the soaring demand from families in food poverty unless the industry steps up its help.
The Felix Project said the cost of living crisis had seen a huge rise in need for food, whilst soaring energy costs had hampered its delivery operations.
This week it held a meeting of suppliers and retailers, including Abel & Cole, Deliveroo, Harrods, Innocent, Hello Fresh, Pret and Sainsbury’s. They were among companies who contributed almost 8,500 tonnes of surplus food between January and August this year to the charity, but were told demand was outstripping supply.
“We met with around 100 of our food partners to explain why we need more food and suppliers. We spoke about the massive challenges on the ground with the cost of living crisis, which comes on top of the toll of the pandemic, which is still being felt,” said Felix Project CEO Charlotte Hill.
“We wanted to thank them for their great support but also ask what could be done not just to get more food but also to get more volunteers.”
The Felix Project took over the running of FareShare’s London operations in 2020, after joining its network .
“The situation at the moment is a perfect storm,” added Hill. “We are seeing a huge rise in demand while at the same time our costs are going through the roof. We’ve got four huge depots, a community kitchen that delivers 5,000 meals a day and a fleet of 45 vehicles out, so fixed costs and our energy costs have risen dramatically.”
Felix’s Kitchen, which provides meals for community groups, costs an estimated £1.3m a year to run, but the charity said this was facing a big increase with the rise in energy prices.
Last month a series of food bank operators told The Grocer they were sometimes having to turn families away amid a drastic fall in donations from shoppers, coupled with soaring demand, while FareShare figures suggested surplus operations were being hit by ongoing disruption to supply chains.
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