Aviva Community Fund provided £681 of match funding
Surplus Food Redistrubution -Tackling Food Poverty
Plymouth, England, United Kingdom
Aim
We aim to actively eradicate food poverty in our community by providing surplus food relief, food which would otherwise go to waste.
Devon and Cornwall Food Action
Who we are
Our project makes use of surplus food from retailers and food manufacturers to help address food poverty in our community. As a registered charity we celebrate our 10th anniversary this year during some very uncertain times.
Each year almost 1 million tonnes* of food is wasted from these sectors, food which is perfectly edible. DCFA collect this food from supermarkets and food producers and then delivers healthy food boxes to people most in need. It's a low cost approach to tackling surplus food and food poverty, avoiding the need to rely solely on donated or purchased food.
What we do
Unlike a food bank we do not rely on food donations or purchased food. We also aim to remove the barriers to surplus food by reducing the need for referrals or means testing and delivering food directly & discreetly to peoples homes who are on low income, in crisis or vulnerable and shielding from COVID19.
A typical food box contains fruit, veg, bread, diary, cereals, tins, frozen and chilled food. Enough to last a week or longer with some 'top' up groceries. A very small proportion is made up for donated or purchased food to maintain a good 'basket' of provisions. We also link in the the local Hygiene bank to provide essential toiletries and cleaning products.
Over the last 6 months we have delivered the following outcomes:
Estimated total net economic contribution is in excess of £1M per annum, including avoided waste & volunteers hours.
Our Costs
It costs DCFA £150,000 a year to collect, sort, store and redistribute food. Our primary costs include the collection of food 7 days a week, the delivery of food to service users 6 days a week and all the overheads required to store, chill and freeze food at our warehouse.
We are already starting to see the economic impacts of COVID19, as food requests increase sharply. Since the start of the pandemic our costs have almost trebled, which is why we are kindly asking for your support to help address a funding gap of £27,000. This funding will be used to cover the increasing cost of:
- Fuel and maintenance for our fleet of vehicles, used to collect and redistribute food
- Volunteers expenses and drivers who are critical to our charity
- Electricity for food refridgeration - enabling us to freeze food and extend its life.
Please join our supporters
Our supporters include Plymouth Community Homes, Devon and Cornwall Police and South West Water, all of who recognise the importance of our work in the community.
We are an independent food charity, NOT funded by organisations such as Fareshare or the Trusell Trust and therefore we rely on the kind donation of business and the public to keep our vehicles on the road and bills paid.
Why your help is so important
Our region is often associated with summer holidays, surfing and romantic trips away. However, like many tourist areas the very people who make those holidays possible have been disproportionality affected by COVID19. The restrictions on tourism, hospitality and leisure have closed large sections of our economy giving rise to financial hardship for workers already on low and insecure incomes. But of course, not everyone in the SW works in these sectors, many self employed people and those employed in manufacturing have also been affected by COVID19.
We pride ourselves on being a food project 'for the people and run by the people of Plymouth , Devon and Cornwall'. By supporting our charity with you will be tackling the duel problem of food poverty and edible food waste, a social and environmental scandal. In short, filling bellies not bins.
*Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) 2018.
This project successfully funded on 16th December 2020