Member Article

Charity receives early Christmas gift from Greggs

Specialist food charity The Cyrenians FareShare North East has received an early Christmas gift from Greggs.

The bakery firm has donated a long wheel based Volkswagen delivery van, which is capable of carrying three full pallets of food, or the equivalent of over 4,000 meals.

It will allow the Cyrenians Fareshare North East to distribute an additional 15 tons of food donations to an extra 40 projects which support people suffering food poverty.

Michael Shields, General Manager of The Cyrenians FareShare North East, said:
“It’s fair to say that this van will be clocking up the miles, we expect it to become a well-recognised feature on North East roads as it travels between our hubs in Newcastle, Middlesbrough and Durham and projects serving people in need.

“The Cyrenians FareShare North East is extremely grateful for this van. Transporting goods is fundamental to us; we can now fetch and carry larger volumes of food than ever before.

“We’re looking forward to more food providers and producers and more projects serving people in need getting in touch with us.”

Food is already donated to The Cyrenian’s main depot in Newcastle by Greggs three days each week.

Ken McMeikan, Chief Executive of Greggs, explained: “We are delighted to be able to support The Cyrenians FareShare North East in this way. We have supplied surplus foods from Greggs since The Cyrenians started the FareShare service in the North East in 2008.

“We also work with The Cyrenians in a range of other ways including skills training and mentoring for homeless people, and providing work placement opportunities at Greggs.

“We have always been impressed with The Cyrenian’s commitment and innovation in supporting people in need, and hope that the van will enable them to deliver more food to those people who so desperately need help every day.”

In the UK every year, around 3 million tonnes of food is wasted by the food industry: 2.6 million tonnes is thrown away by the manufacturing sector along; 362,000 tonnes by the retail sector and 4,000 tonnes is wasted during distribution.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .