Global food leader to provide 200,000 meals
Sysco GB Extends its strategic partnership with City Harvest. The partnertship will provide around 200,000 meals and save 330 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.
“Working with City Harvest is so easy, we recommend them to other companies as a sustainable solution to surplus food.”
Sysco companies Fresh Direct and Wild Harvest have joined Brakes’ London depot in forming a new, strategic partnership with City Harvest food rescue charity to provide surplus food to people facing food poverty in London, and beyond.
City Harvest has seen a dramatic increase in demand as families struggle with the cost-of-living crisis, with one in four Londoners facing food insecurity and, with rapidly escalating costs, City Harvest is seeing demand from people who have never before needed food banks.
Hodo Dirir, Headteacher at City Harvest partner school and food recipient, Cyril Jackson Primary School, Tower Hamlets, explained the importance of food donations:
“You’ve got kids coming in, they’ve not had breakfast. They are starving. How do we expect them to learn? We have to feed them.”
The new partnership will see City Harvest collect from Fresh Direct and Wild Harvest’s Dagenham depot twice a week, in addition to weekly collections from Brakes’ site in Park Royal, helping charities feeding a whole spectrum of people in need across the capital. It is anticipated that food donated by Sysco GB will provide around 200,000 meals every year and save approximately 330 tonnes of GHG emissions.
Sysco GB Sustainability Manager, Emily Pinkney, said:
“It’s fantastic to work with an organisation like City Harvest to ensure surplus food goes to support people who really need it. Our goal is to minimise food waste through every stage of our operations, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, and this partnership will help ensure that it’s not wasted. Working with City Harvest is so easy, we recommend them to other companies as a sustainable solution to surplus food.”
Sarah Calcutt, CEO at City Harvest added:
“City Harvest loves working with sustainable companies like Sysco to co-create maximum positive social impact. Our partnership with Sysco ensures no good food is wasted and people facing extreme hardship will be able to feed their families. Across Wild Harvest, Brakes and Fresh Direct, we source an extensive range of fresh quality food and ingredients that our charities will use to promote health and wellbeing to vulnerable people in this tough economic climate.”
City Harvest driver, Joris, collecting fresh surplus from Fresh Direct, Daghenham.
The partnership with City Harvest supports Sysco’s Purpose which is ‘Connecting the world to share food and care for one another’, which will see Sysco generate $500m worth of good by 2025, including £10m in the UK. The Fresh Direct team will also spend time volunteering at the City Harvest depot to ensure that they understand the demands on the charity and the value it is adding to local communities, fostering even closer links between the two organisations.
Thank you, Sysco GB, for your impact. Together, we can tackle two of society’s largest issues, food waste and food poverty.
Got surplus? Get in touch with our food team to see how you can avoid food waste, and help people and planet.
