City Harvest: Harvest for Hunger 2022
Working with farms and producers, IFE charity partner City Harvest launches its second annual ‘Harvest for Hunger’ campaign, aiming to rescue nutritious food for 2 million meals.
Responsive and reliable when organising redistribution, City Harvest collects quality surplus and donated stock, from farms and food producers across the UK, delivering it, free of charge, to 350+ charities feeding people unable to afford healthy food.
Currently, 5 million people face food poverty in the UK and with the cost of living rising, City Harvest is creating solutions. LEAF-accredited City Harvest supports sustainable farming with free surplus produce collections, whilst offering maximum social impact. The Harvest for Hunger initiative enables
City Harvest to access food earlier on in the supply chain to be transformed into healthy meals for those who need it most.
City Harvest’s Head of Food, Dan McAlpine, says, “City Harvest prides itself on understanding the challenges producers and packers face with surpluses. The growers we speak to are so passionate about their food not being wasted. Last year was such a success, we are keen to create more meaningful relationships and life-changing channels for surplus.” In 2021 G’s Group worked with City Harvest, becoming a sustainable farm partner.
Chief Executive, Guy Shropshire, says, “G’s looks forward to working with City Harvest to support the further redistribution of surplus. G’s is committed, not only to reducing our overall food waste, but proactively ensuring a larger proportion of our surplus ends up in ‘value add’ destinations. City Harvest tackles surplus food and food poverty in a positive and sustainable way.”
City Harvest surplus food recipient, Athleen, Hammersmith & Fulham, says, "I am so grateful for the fresh food provided. The quality of the food is amazing, things I have never tried before! My children always look forward to what will be in the box! It has really helped, as the money I save goes towards the rising cost of bills.”
Supported by WRAP, Will McManus, Sector Specialist, WRAP explains, “WRAP helps growers tackle food waste because it represents valuable nutrition and because wasting food feeds climate change. This is a challenge that no business can solve alone, and we commend the increasing number of growers collaborating with City Harvest’s flexible and cost-free solution to help people and planet.”
City Harvest London Est. 2014
City Harvest collects nutritious surplus food from manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers, and delivers, for free, to 350+ London charities feeding those facing food poverty. City Harvest rescues food, people, and planet by preventing food waste, providing life-changing support to communities in every London borough through food, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions from waste. City Harvest enables food companies with surplus to have an immediate positive social impact with a free sustainable solution. Recipient charities include homeless shelters, hostels, soup kitchens, mental health charities, projects for the elderly and socially isolated, community kitchens, schools, family centres, children’s programmes, and domestic abuse refuges. City Harvest more than doubled in size in 2020 to meet the demand of people facing food poverty, now distributing free food for more than 1 million meals a month.