City Harvest Expands Capacity to Deliver Free Meals
New mezzanine floor installed at base in Acton Park Estate
The ribbon cutting ceremony for the new floor
January 24, 2024
Local food charity City Harvest is now able to provide even more free meals to those in need thanks to an expansion at its base in the Acton Park Estate.
Warehouse provider SEGRO has co-funded and installed a new 1,800 sq ft mezzanine floor within the unit occupied by City Harvest. This creates the potential for the surplus food redistribution charity to more than double its output to 60,000 meals a day, a 15% increase. This allowed the growing charity to remain at its current location rather than needing to relocate to deal with increased demand for its services.
30 people attended a ribbon cutting event in Acton to mark the completion of the refurbished collection and distribution hub. Guests included Rupa Huq, MP for Ealing Central and Acton, and Harriet Lamb, CEO of Wrap, the climate action NGO.
The charity collects surplus food from restaurants, grocers, manufacturers, wholesalers, hotels and caterers, delivering nourishing meals to community food programmes that feed the homeless, individuals and families in transition, women in crises, refugees, veterans, children and the elderly.
Funding for the project was a joint effort with other charitable and business organisations: SEGRO, The Story of Christmas and Permira. Employees from Bowden Moss, Arcadis, Clear Drains (UK) Ltd and Eversheds Sutherland, supply chain partners for the project, also contributed on a pro-bono basis to help save the charity significant costs.
Dean Bernard, Head of Operations at City Harvest, said, “SEGRO has played an instrumental role in facilitating City Harvest’s expansion, enabling us to meet the extreme need faced by London and beyond. Record levels of food poverty are being addressed whilst at the same time, City Harvest is supporting the food industry on its journey towards net zero and rescuing food waste. This expansion will change the lives of thousands, shaping the health of our future.
“SEGRO has worked closely with City Harvest to build a mezzanine and reconfigure our space so we can rescue, store and deliver greater volumes of food. We have now increased our total operating capability which creates the potential to increase activity by over 60,000 meals, more than doubling our current daily output.”
Bonnie Minshull, Head of London at SEGRO, said, “SEGRO takes its responsibility towards the local community seriously and is proud to support City Harvest’s incredible work in combating food poverty, while simultaneously tackling food waste.
“I am delighted that through our Responsible SEGRO commitment to invest in local communities we were able to help unlock additional funding, and incredibly proud that we could bring together contributions from our supply chain partners to ensure the project was delivered on time and on budget. The outcome is that fewer vulnerable people in London will go hungry.”
Rupa Huq added, “It’s always inspiring to visit City Harvest at SEGRO’s Acton Park estate, I’m full of admiration for their long-standing work supplying west London and 27 other boroughs with food. It is, however, bittersweet to see City Harvest is needed more than ever. The expansion reflects an acute need to increase capacity at this desperate time. I congratulate the whole team in making this happen."
You can find out more about how you can support the food redistribution charity by clicking here.
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