City Harvest (United Kingdom)

City Harvest is a charitable organisation focused on alleviating food insecurity and food waste across London. City Harvest feeds over 12,000 Londoners a day with fresh, nutritious, surplus food from a myriad of food producers.

History

City Harvest London's first last-mile food rescue organisation. The founders, including Laura Winningham (CEO) began the organisation to address high levels of unused, but perfectly edible, food surpluses that were being wasted by food businesses across London.[1] The model was originally based off other international food rescue organisations, but was quickly adapted to suit the London city-scape. Since its founding City Harvest has delivered over 5,000,000 meals worth of food to Londoners in need.

Goals

The goal of City Harvest London is to put surplus food to use in a sustainable way by distributing it to over 300 organisations around London that feed the hungry.[2] Using a fleet of refrigerated vans, City Harvest collects in-date surplus food from supermarkets, restaurants, manufacturers, caterers (including those running at exhibition centres such as Kensington Olympia), and other food businesses, and distributes it to community programmes in their network.[3] The charity claims to provide a solution to hunger, malnutrition, food insecurity, food waste, and greenhouse gas emissions.[4] The charity provides fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, poultry, and other products to organisations across London serving free meals to vulnerable individuals. Some of the organisations they work with include FoodCycle, The American Church Soup Kitchen, St Mary The Boltons and St Andrew Holborn, among 300 others.[5]

City Harvest also works to create research on the scope of food poverty and food waste in London, statistics which are not yet tracked on a governmental level. Through their research, City Harvest has calculated that 9 million meals are needed per month to alleviate food insecurity in London.[6]

Achievements

In April 2018, the organisation delivered its two millionth recycled meal.[7] By March 2019, it had served 5 million meals, and prevented 6,200 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.[8]

References
  1. "City Harvest London - Giving Food Another Life". City Harvest London - Giving Food Another Life. Retrieved 10 May 2020.
  2. "Market's relationship with City Harvest helps to feed vulnerable Londoners". Spitalfields.
  3. Tatum, Megan (22 January 2018). "City Harvest: another life for London's waste food". The Grocer.
  4. "Charity to feed over 60,000 Londoners in poverty after £80k cash boost". Charity Today. 19 October 2018.
  5. Ruddock, Jill Shaw (6 March 2019). "It's great to see our churches unite to help the elderly". London Evening Standard. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  6. "Written evidence - City Harvest London". data.parliament.uk. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
  7. Calnan, Marianne (10 April 2018). "City Harvest London delivers two millionth recycled meal". The Grocer.
  8. "Innovative Approach to Food Management at IFE 2019 Reducing Waste is Key Say Food & Drink Industry Experts". Premiser Construction News. 23 March 2019. Retrieved 23 April 2019.
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