City Harvest is a charity based in Acton, West London that redistributes food to charities across London, who in turn make healthy and nutritious food for some of the city’s most vulnerable people. To aid their efforts to date they have recently launched a GoFundMe campaign to help with essential funding.
Since 17 March they have been receiving 20 tonnes of food a day. To put this in perspective they usually get 35 tonnes a week.
Since the majority of restaurants in London closed on Friday 20 March following the government’s COVID-19 announcement, the tonnage of food received has increased by nearly 14 tonnes per day.
At least a tonne of chicken from Nando’s was received as well as steaks from Hawksmoor and much more from London restaurants desperate to ensure their food was not going to waste.
Facebook offices sent over two van loads of food from their onsite restaurants, Barings Investments sent 100 kg of fruit and vegetables and Hammersmith Library sent half a tonne of fruit and veg.
Calls offering assistance have been received from many London hospitality businesses and chefs including Honest Burgers, Wasabi, Unilever and McDonalds.
The core team at the warehouse consists of 9 drivers, 3 warehouse managers, 1 logistics director, 1 volunteer coordinator and Nikki Tadema the COO. On average they have 5 volunteers who come in every week, they called out for more volunteers on their social media channels and websites, and now there are over 20 volunteers a day.
Speaking to the volunteers they come from a variety of backgrounds, and most have recently lost their jobs as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The van drivers usually distribute 70 van loads of food per week and this has now doubled per week to over 140 van loads.
LONDON’S FIRST FOOD SURPLUS REDISTRIBUTION CHARITY
City Harvest, established 2014, London’s first food redistribution charity.
Rescuing food surplus and delivering to those who need it the most.
City Harvest vans collect and deliver 80,000 meals a week from supermarkets, wholesale markets, manufacturers and the hospitality industry, Free of charge. Our fleet of temperature- controlled vans deliver to over 300 London community programmes, including: homeless shelters, mental health community projects, family centres, children’s’ programmes, and domestic abuse refuges.