In partnership with the food poverty charity network FareShare, our restaurants are donating over 27 tonnes of food, the equivalent of 64,387 meals, to the neediest and most vulnerable in the UK during the coronavirus crisis.
This partnership will help reduce food waste, at a point in time when our restaurants have closed with huge surpluses of food in preparation for what should have been one of the busiest times of the year.
Our restaurants are donating between 40-50,000 cases of stock, which includes around 9800 tomatoes, 2100 potatoes, 4000 bananas, 15,500 pints of milk and much more. Fresh, nutritious foods like these are particularly important to FareShare’s network of charities and community groups – including schools, food banks, care homes and homeless shelters.
The majority of the food will be distributed to FareShare through Whitbread’s two main logistics centres, and then onwards through the organisation’s network of frontline charities and the community groups it supports.
Phil Birbeck, Managing Director at Whitbread Restaurants said: “We are extremely proud that we are able to act as a Force for Good through our partnership with FareShare by enabling us to donate food that would potentially have gone to waste, and that community groups and charities will benefit. This is an extremely difficult time for everyone, but we are so pleased that something positive is able to come from this as we continue to find ways to support our teams, our guests and our suppliers in unprecedented times.”
Lindsay Boswell, FareShare Chief Executive, said: “FareShare already provides enough food to charities to help them provide almost a million meals a week - but as the coronavirus outbreak develops, demand for our service is only going to continue rising. The past month alone has seen a record number of charities requesting to sign up, which only makes Whitbread’s support even more vital. The nutritious, fresh food supplied by Whitbread will be distributed to thousands of charities working tirelessly through this crisis to ensure those most vulnerable are not left at increased risk of hunger.”