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12 February 2018

Government Launches New Fund to Increase Surplus Food Redistribution in England

With funding provided by Defra, the new £500,000 fund is aimed at not for profit organisations who supply surplus food from food businesses.

The Food Waste Reduction Fund aims to help avoid surplus food produced by food businesses from becoming waste, by enabling not-for-profit organisations across England to redistribute more of this food to people in need.

Funding will be provided for projects to help overcome barriers to increasing redistribution. Projects could cover areas such as:

  • Training for the people involved in supplying and distributing surplus food – on IT and food safety skills, for example.
  • Infrastructure such as packing and labelling facilities, freezer capacity or refrigerated vehicles to enable more types of food or larger quantities to be redistributed.
  • Facilitation to form collaborative partnerships and help not-for-profits join up with appropriate partners.
  • Communication and technology to facilitate logistics between donor and recipient organisations.

Funding will be awarded with the aim of making a significant increase to the amount of food redistributed, as cost-effectively as possible. It is expected that grants will range from £20,000 to £75,000.

WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) is administering the fund on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

WRAP’s Director Peter Maddox said:

“This fund will make a huge difference to many organisations in England, and those who use their services. We’re particularly looking for new routes and fresh partnerships to get more surplus food to people in need. I’m keen to see expressions of interest that will increase redistribution from food manufacturers and businesses not already redistributing food, or which can significantly improve and increase existing redistribution chains. We want this fund to help make a step-change in the amount of surplus food that is redistributed to people.”

There is a two-stage application process.

The deadline for expressions of interest is 30 March 2018.

Full details…

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