City Harvest’s very first food donor gives back to the community.
Shop Local, Give Local
City Harvest is thrilled to be Whole Foods Market’s chosen charity for their 2022 ‘Shop Local, Give Local’ campaign. This initiative focuses on supporting local businesses and giving back to local communities via City Harvest.
How does the campaign work? Visit any Whole Foods Market store in London and purchase any one of their Local products, Whole Foods Market will match 100% of the proceeds and donate it all to City Harvest London to help with mission to rescue food, people, and the planet.
Watch the video here or click on via the video below.
Whole Foods Market & City Harvest: A history
This is a special partnership for us as Whole Foods Market was in fact our very first partner. We’ve been working with them since our inception in 2014, collecting surplus food from Whole Foods Market stores across London, starting with their High Street Kensington store, and delivering to those in need.
2014: City Harvest London was established as London’s first last-mile food redistribution charity, and Whole Foods Market was our first food donor, enabling us to connect ‘waste’ (perfectly edible surplus) with want across the city.
2017: City Harvest driver, Debbie (pictured above), collects Whole Foods Market surplus from High Street Kensington in one of our original food rescue vans.
2022: Whole Foods Market donates 74 tonnes of quality surplus food in 2022 alone, helping to nourish communities facing food poverty across London.
City Harvest driver, Alwyn (left), and his right-hand man, volunteer David (right), collect surplus food from Whole Foods Market, High Street Kensington, every week.
The quality produce is then distributed on to charities across London feeding people from all walks of life who struggle to access and afford good food. Our charity partners include food hubs, community centres, soup kitchens, women’s refuges, youth clubs and school food banks.
Whole Foods Market celebration cakes are often an added bonus for our food recipients, providing a special treat in otherwise tough times:
“The older kids LOVE the Whole Foods Market stuff. When we get the larger cakes in, we save it for the older kids, and they’ll cut it up and have tea and cake together, it’s really sweet.”
– LMP Action, a youth engagement programme based in Hammersmith, West London.
