Squeezing value out of every donated meal: Whoosh 2023 fundraising for FareShare UK

Whoosh are a group of amateur cyclists who do a 5 day cycle somewhere in the UK every May Bank Holiday to raise money for good causes and to have fun in the outdoors on bicycles. Over many years we have raised £'000s for local, national and international charities (see whoosh.org.uk/) This year, being very concerned about the impact of the cost of living crisis, growing food poverty, and the huge amount of food wasted across the UK food industry, we have decided to support FareShare UK and one of their independent partners FareShare Grampian especially as we shall be cycling across their territory on our 350 mile 'Cairngorms Challenge' 28th April-2nd May 2023 taking in glorious scenery, hills and weather from Perth to Pitlochry via Aberdeen and Banff.

Why FareShare?
In the UK today 1 in 5 people, including 4 million children, experience food insecurity (meaning they do not have reliable access to affordable, healthy food to meet their basic needs). People run out of money for food before the end of the week or have to buy poor value food because it is cheap. Parents skip meals to feed their children. Children go to school hungry. Yet more than 3 million tonnes of good food are wasted from farms, factories and shops every year; enough for 7 billion meals.

FareShare helps food producers both to improve their processes to prevent environmentally damaging food waste and to use surplus food for good instead. They collect good quality food from farm gates and factories across the UK and distribute it to where it belongs and is needed - on people's plates.

FareShare works through a national network of 18 independent charitable food redistributors including FareShare Grampian to get food from the food industry to 9,500 lunch clubs, homeless shelters, school breakfast clubs and many charities and community groups serving people in food poverty. These organisations also offer holistic support to people experiencing unemployment, low income, debt, homelessness, loneliness, drug or alcohol addiction, family break up, winter hardship and domestic violence thereby helping to squeeze as much value as possible from every meal.

FareShare Grampian have generously offered to show us what they are doing when we get to their distribution centre in Aberdeen. Vans and volunteer van drivers are at the heart of their work across a large area often delivering food to isolated communities and through some of the most challenging geography in the UK, as we shall soon find out for ourselves.

If we raise £7,500 this will help cover the running costs of one delivery van for a year at FareShare Grampian or help FareShare UK redistribute food for 30,000 meals. If we double this we can do both!
Demand for the work of FareShare has never been greater and this is a great opportunity for Whoosh to show solidarity with an area we are cycling through.

Thank you in advance for your generosity