The Cadbury Foundation is partnering with FareShare to support the launch of an innovative project involving community meal production and training kitchens in the Midlands and Yorkshire.
FareShare, the country’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste, has been awarded a substantial grant of more than £243,000 from The Cadbury Foundation, which will help the charity significantly invest in two of its meal production kitchens that help tackle food waste and hunger in two UK regions - the Midlands and Yorkshire.
The large sum will enable FareShare to invest and redevelop two existing food production and training kitchens in the Midlands and Yorkshire. The investment into the space located in Nottingham will allow the charity to scale up the local existing meal production kitchen in the Midlands, as well as find permanent facilities.
Once located, the permanent space will produce meals using fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted, which will be delivered directly to local charitable and not-for-profit organisations across the Midlands who are tackling hunger, poverty and the escalating effects of the ongoing cost-of-living crisis. The kitchen will also further grow and diversify the range of surplus food that FareShare can accept, while reducing its detrimental impact on the environment when it is unnecessarily wasted.
Yorkshire’s FullCrumb Kitchen will also receive regeneration as part of the generous grant from The Cadbury Foundation. The Barnsley-based training kitchen is set to receive a brand-new, bespoke kitchen and upgraded premises, which will enable the charity to continue training and supporting individuals, charities and community groups on how to get the best out of the surplus food available at FareShare Yorkshire.
Currently one in five people in the UK are worried about where their next meal is coming from. At the same time, 3 million tonnes of food goes to waste on UK farms every year. As well as funding the redevelopment cost of the two food production and training kitchens, The Cadbury Foundation’s significant donation will help the charity fund the cost of transporting 585 tonnes of surplus food to regional centres across the UK. The grant will also allow FareShare to continue to provide a supply of fresh, quality and varied ingredients to be used across the regions, as well as invest in training to upskill local community chefs in how to cook healthy, nutritious meals.
The Cadbury Foundation was set up in 1935 in recognition of Richard and George Cadbury and since it was established, has been making donations to charities across the UK and Ireland supporting organisations to thrive and further benefit the communities they serve, with many of the Cadbury family serving as trustees throughout its history. Over the last 10 years alone it has donated more than £15 million to registered charities and community partners.
Louise Stigant, trustee of The Cadbury Foundation and UK managing director of Mondelēz International, commented: “We’re extremely proud to be supporting FareShare with this incredible intiative and we hope that the investment into the two food production and training kitchens will help to tackle food waste and food insecurity across the Midlands and Yorkshire, allowing those who are vulnerable the opportunity to access healthy and nutritious food.
“We’re pleased that through The Cadbury Foundation we can continue to spirit of the Cadbury brothers and support so many fantastic charities and projects, such as FareShare, which make a real difference to the lives of so many each year.”
Lindsay Boswell, CEO at FareShare, said: “We are incredibly grateful for this generous donation from The Cadbury Foundation. Not only will it help provide even more surplus food to the Yorkshire and Midlands regions, it will also help upskill volunteers and people locally, and enable us to strengthen communities through food. This support will help us get more of this good food, that would have otherwise gone to waste, to people who are being disproptionately impacted by the cost of living crisis.”
For further information on The Cadbury Foundation, visit www.cadbury.co.uk/cadbury-foundation, and for more details on FareShare, head to www.fareshare.org.uk.