Food redistribution charity FareShare is looking to secure funding to open a second London depot, as the capital tries to deal with its continuing food waste problem.

FareShare, which receives food daily from manufacturers and retailers, counts Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s among its clients and receives enough food to feed more than 25,000 each day through 500 community organisations.

The food is all of saleable quality, often with a reduced shelf life, and is delivered to one of the charity’s 12 UK depots by the food companies, instead of other options such as taking it to landfill.

FareShare is looking to open a site in Park Royal, west London, to help ease the demand from both food suppliers and recipients of the food.

Grace Rowley, communications and administration officer at FareShare, told freshinfo: “There’s a big emphasis on the consumer and less on manufacturers and retailers when you think about food waste.

“There does need to be industry accountability but if people tightened margins completely obviously there wouldn’t be any surplus left for us.

“It can cost around £40 per pallet to take waste to landfill, whereas companies pay less to use us to redistribute the food to community groups and hostels where the food is actually used for its purpose and to benefit people who would otherwise not be able to access a proper diet.”

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