When we launched our frozen food service in February we had high hopes that our Community Food Members (CFMs) would benefit greatly.  We wanted to provide the opportunity to access a larger amount of quality in-date food, especially because the number of people accessing frontline services had risen sharply.

Six months in and we strongly believe the new initiative has been a great success thanks to a huge team effort from our partners, staff and volunteers.

So what do the numbers tell us?

71 CFMs have already benefitted from surplus frozen foods with 50 food partners already donating towards it. 

Since its launch the equivalent of 14,000 trays of food have been provided and over 30% of this has been high value protein like meat or fish. 

This means the wonderful charities we serve are benefitting massively, saving money on food bills and able to reinvest it into the vital work they perform.

The freezer that houses our surplus frozen stock resides at our Yorkshire Storage Hub (YSH) in Leeds. 

Beighton Lifestyle Centre are one of the CFMs benefitting from this exciting initiative.

James Carter-Birkinshaw, YSH Manager, says:

“The tireless work of organisations like Beighton Lifestyle Centre (BLC) through the last 16 months has been incredible.  They are all a huge credit to the communities they serve and it’s a huge privilege for us to play a small part in their success.  Over the last 100 days, we’ve been able to provide over 70 charities including BLC with a lot of meat and vegetables especially.  We boosted BLC’s food volumes by 20% in that period, giving them 590kg of frozen foods of which 258kg was meat. 

“We are so proud to be intercepting more surplus frozen foods than ever before in our 23 years of operating.  Our work is continually expanding because we want to support many more vital frontline organisations with the food they need to thrive.  So far frozen foods have really helped our Community Food Members to access much more protein, to store food away for periods when they lack certain items and plan their menus days or even weeks ahead.”

Muna, from Hadfield Institute, is another CFM that has been grateful for the frozen provision.

“We joined the frozen initiative to see if it would benefit the food parcels we offer through our Food Pharmacy and it has!  We get our fortnightly delivery and we receive such an amazing choice of food that support Halal and non-Halal, as well as meat alternatives.  Many of the parents and children look forward to coming to our Food Pharmacy.

“Good communication and a good partnership are key to us and very important to the service we deliver.  We always receive this with FareShare Yorkshire.”