Charities to get cash from £15m fund to redistribute surplus farm food

The Government will go ahead with a £15 million fund to help get surplus food from farms to homeless shelters, food banks and charities.

The scheme to be launched in 2025 will give grants of £20,000 or more to the not-for-profit food redistribution sector in England.

It continues a pledge by Sir Keir Starmer’s predecessor Rishi Sunak to launch a food waste prevention fund.

Some 330,000 tonnes of edible food a year is either wasted or repurposed as animal feed before it leaves farm gates, the Government estimates.

The fund aims to help charities that redistribute food but often lack the means to collect it from farms and get it to those who need it.

They could use the money to buy new equipment, such as balers or hoppers, which would allow charities to collect bulky food items or process them into parcels.

The cash could also be used for new technology or to provide training to more staff.

The heads of two food redistribution charities said they were “thrilled” the fund had come to fruition after years of campaigning and were eager to act quickly to maximise its impact during the British growing season.

“We have a proven model which funds farmers to redistribute their unsold food, which means that together, we can take meaningful steps toward achieving a zero-waste Britain,” Charlotte Hill and Kris Gibbon-Walsh, chief executives of The Felix Project and FareShare respectively, said.

Mary Creagh, circular economy minister, said the fund would help the charitable sector to work more closely with farmers.

She said: “With families gathering to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, it’s important to remember those in our communities who may be going hungry this festive period.

“Nobody wants to see good food go to waste – especially farmers who work hard to put food on family tables across the country.”