Hugh’s War on Waste returned to the nation’s screens on 28 July with encouraging news about charity redistribution of surplus food: in the six months between filming episode 2 and episode 3 of the series, the volume of food that FareShare received from the food industry increased by an incredible 60%.

Last year, for the second episode of the BBC series, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall visited the FareShare Merseyside team to see how we redistribute good food that would otherwise go to waste to nearly 2,500 frontline charities and community groups across the UK.

Read more about Hugh’s visit to FareShare Merseyside

In the third and final episode of the series, Hugh visited another of our 20 Regional Centres, FareShare Southern Central in Southampton, where FareShare CEO, Lindsay Boswell, told him that the volume of food FareShare received was 60% higher in December 2015 than it had been six months earlier – meaning that an extra 50,000 people were being fed every week with food that might otherwise have been wasted.

Hugh also heard about new initiatives that are helping supermarkets to redistribute food that remains unsold in their stores at the end of the day. These include FareShare FoodCloud, which combines technology and on-the-ground support to connect stores with local charities. Tesco is the first retailer to invest in and rollout FareShare FoodCloud to its stores and after just four months, the scheme has already provided enough food for more than half a million meals to over 1,400 charities and community groups.

Join the fight against food waste

Last year we redistributed more food than ever before, enough for frontline charities to provide 18.3 million meals for vulnerable people. Yet hundreds of thousands of tonnes of perfectly edible food still gets thrown away, or used to generate energy or animal feed, every year –  enough to provide at least 650 million meals for people in need.

Join us in the fight against food waste today – by donating, volunteering or giving food – to help us get that food to people who need it most.

Find out more about Hugh’s campaign on the Waste Not site 

Could you volunteer at one of our Regional Centres?

We’re always on the lookout for Food Heroes who can help us to get good, surplus food to the people who need it most. Could you help to sort food at one of our Regional Centres? Or take to the road to help us deliver it to local charities supporting vulnerable people?

Find out how and where you can volunteer

Could your charity use good food?

From marvellous meat, dairy and fish to flavoursome fruit and veg, we redistribute good quality, in date surplus food to charities and community groups who turn it into nutritious meals for vulnerable people. We’d love to hear from you if you think FareShare food could make a difference to your organisation and the people you support.

Find out how your organisation can receive food
Find out more about FareShare FoodCloud

Could you give surplus food from your business?

Our Regional Centres have a waiting list of charities needing food, so we’re urgently calling for more companies to redistribute their good, surplus produce. We work with hundreds of businesses including growers, packers, manufacturers, wholesalers, logistics companies and retailers, to help them redistribute surplus food to people in need. Work with us and join the likes of Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Co-operative Food in using your surplus for social good.

Contact our Food Team

Read case studies on food businesses we currently work with
Find out how we can work together to redistribute your surplus food