22 June 2023
The Cadbury Foundation is partnering with FareShare to support the launch of an innovative project to fund community meal production and training kitchens in Yorkshire and the Midlands. The foundation has generously awarded a substantial grant of more than £243,000, which will help FareShare to invest in and redevelop two of its existing meal production and training kitchens, helping tackle food waste and hunger across Yorkshire and the Midlands.
The investment into the Nottingham-based kitchen will allow FareShare to scale up local meal production in the Midlands, and help to find permanent facilities. Once established, the permanent space will enable fresh, surplus produce to be made into nutritious meals that can be delivered to local charities and community groups. The kitchen will not only assist these organisations in tackling hunger, poverty, and the escalating effects of the ongoing cost of living crisis, but will enable FareShare to grow and diversify the range of surplus food it can accept, whilst reducing the detrimental impact of food waste on the environment.
In Yorkshire, the FullCrumb Kitchen will also receive a portion of the generous grant, allowing the training kitchen to receive a full upgrade. This will enable the Barnsley-based charity to continue to train and support individuals, charities and community groups on how to get the best out of the surplus food available at FareShare Yorkshire.
Established in 1935, the Cadbury Foundation has been making donations to charities across the UK and Ireland ever since, with many of the Cadbury family serving as trustees. Over the past 10 years, the foundation has donated more than £15 million to registered charities and community partners, supporting these organisations to thrive and further benefit the communities they serve.
Louise Stigant, Trustee of The Cadbury Foundation and UK Managing Director of Mondelēz International, commented: “We’re extremely proud to be supporting FareShare with this incredible initiative and we hope that the investment into the two food production and training kitchens will help to tackle food waste and food insecurity across the Midlands and Yorkshire, allowing those who are vulnerable the opportunity to access healthy and nutritious food.
“We’re pleased that through The Cadbury Foundation we can continue to spirit of the Cadbury brothers and support so many fantastic charities and projects, such as FareShare, which make a real difference to the lives of so many each year.”
Across the UK, one in five people are worried about where their next meal will come from, whilst 3 million tonnes of food goes to waste every year. The Cadbury Foundation’s significant donation will also support FareShare in transporting 585 tonnes of surplus food to regional centres across the UK, ensuring a supply of fresh, quality and varied ingredients that can be used to feed hungry people, rather than going to waste. Alongside the redevelopment of the two food production and training kitchens, the grant will allow FareShare to invest in training to upskill local community chefs, enabling them to transform wasted surplus food into healthy, nutritious meals for the people who need them most.
Lindsay Boswell, CEO at FareShare, said: “We are incredibly grateful for this generous donation from The Cadbury Foundation. Not only will it help provide even more surplus food to the Yorkshire and Midlands regions, it will also help upskill volunteers and people locally, and enable us to strengthen communities through food. This support will help us get more of this good food, that would have otherwise gone to waste, to people who are being disproportionately impacted by the cost of living crisis.”
For further information about The Cadbury Foundation, visit www.cadbury.co.uk/cadbury-foundation.
