More than 1,000 fed by donations to Shrewsbury Food Hub
More than 1,000 people have been helped in just three months thanks to a scheme set up to feed homeless and vulnerable adults in Shrewsbury.
Shrewsbury Food Hub has helped huge numbers of people since it was set up in April, according to organisers.
A number of organisations including businesses in the town are working to feed people by using surplus food from supermarkets.
The hub support charities, including Severn Hospice, The Shrewsbury Ark and Shrewsbury Foodbank.
Sheridan Allcock, store manager at Meole Brace's M&S Simply Food, which donates to the cause, said so far it had already helped more than 1,000 people.
She said: "The Shrewsbury Food Hub is an umbrella group for charities and projects in Shrewsbury and Shropshire that feed people as part of their daily work and who can benefit from donations of surplus food from local companies.
"They aim to cut down Shropshire's food waste and help conserve our planet's natural resources.
"The hub receives nightly alerts about surplus food from local retailers. The next morning their volunteers collect the food and then sort and distribute it to organisations in the Shrewsbury area that are able to use it.
"Here at M&S we are proud to have donated 192 trays of food to this charity from the beginning of the relationship, which has fed approximately 1,059 people."
Since the hub began re-distributing surplus food in April the Shrewsbury Food Hub has supported 14 local groups with regular deliveries of bread, pastries, fruit and veg up to three times a week, all for free.
Co-founder Katy Anderson said: "We can provide local non-profit groups working for our community with free food to help their budgets go further.
"Supermarkets donate their surplus food to us so that we can put it to good use. We can't predict exactly what food we will have available on any one day, but we can provide food for regular breakfast or tea clubs or for one-off events."
Typical donations charities and organisations receive include bag of flavoured bread, a bag of rolls or burger buns, a breakfast club tray with bread, fruit and raw vegetable, a tea club tray with cakes, pastries and biscuits or fruit and vegetables for cooking courses.
To find out more about the charity and scheme, visit shrewsburyfoodhub.org.uk
