FareShare Midlands to expand food redistribution with new funding and urgently call for more local volunteers.

Grants to ensure more than 19,000 tonnes of surplus food from English farms gets redistributed to people facing food insecurity.
Funding will help buy new vehicles, train volunteers and upscale storage facilities to tackle food poverty.
FareShare Midlands needs more volunteers to ensure vital supplies reach front-line charities.

More than £13.6 million in funding has been awarded to 12 food redistribution charities across England to prevent nutritious surplus food from going to waste. The grants, part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)’s Tackling Food Surplus at the Farm Gate scheme, will fund new vehicles, volunteer training, and expanded storage facilities — all essential in the fight against food poverty.

Every year, around 330,000 tonnes of edible food is wasted or diverted for animal feed before leaving UK farms. But after years of campaigning, DEFRA’s new scheme will enable charities to rescue and redirect over 19,000 tonnes of good-to-eat food to food pantries, homeless shelters, and frontline charities, ensuring more people have access to fresh, nutritious meals.

FareShare and its Network Partners — including FareShare Midlands — will receive over £9.2 million of the total funding to expand their ability to work with growers across the country, aiming to increase their capacity to redistribute surplus food from farms by 28% – 15,933 tonnes – over this funding period.

FareShare Midlands, the region’s largest food redistribution charity, rescues good-to-eat surplus food from the food industry and delivers it to over 650 charities and community groups. Last year alone, the charity redistributed over 5,000 tonnes of food - the equivalent of 11 million meals, reaching 60,000 people each week across the Midlands.

The Tackling Food Surplus at the Farm Gate grant will allow FareShare Midlands to strengthen its impact within Midlands communities by getting even more food to families facing food insecurity.

To make this happen, extra volunteers are urgently needed to move more food on the ground and support more people. Whether driving vans or sorting food in the warehouse, volunteers are vital to getting surplus food to where it’s needed most.

Simone Connolly, CEO of FareShare Midlands, said: “We’re hugely grateful to DEFRA for their incredible support to help us see surplus food reach those that need it most. With this funding, we can help even more people in need - but we urgently need more volunteers to make it happen. Whether it’s a couple hours a week or a couple of days, the support our volunteers bring to FareShare Midlands is invaluable in helping schemes like this succeed"