The people getting emergency food to those who need it during the pandemic
Ad Feature by Tesco
Before COVID-19, the food bank Hugh McNeill manages in Coventry was feeding 500 people a week. Today, his team are packing enough to feed double that number.
'Sadly, the need for food banks has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic,' says Hugh McNeill, Project Manager at Coventry Food Bank. 'We have seen a doubling of our numbers in just a few weeks’.
Food banks in the Trussell Trust network, of which Coventry Food Bank is a part, saw an 89% increase in need in April compared to the same period last year, with a staggering 107% increase in emergency food parcels for children.
Hugh McNeill works as Project Manager at Coventry Food Bank, one of the largest food banks in the Trussell Trust network and has previously needed to use food banks himself
Hugh knows all too well the impact food banks can have in helping people get back on their feet at a time of crisis. He and his family needed to use food banks back in 2013 when his restaurant business went under.
'I found myself in a terrible place,' he explains, 'with no money, people wanting payment when I had no means of doing so. I was aware I couldn't support my family, so I called the food bank and spoke to the manager.'
This was a turning point for Hugh. 'The manager told me they would support me and my family to get us back on our feet.' Now, Hugh is a Project Manager for a food bank in the Trussell Trust's network and is helping lead local efforts to support others who don’t have enough money for essentials.
'The food bank became part of my family,' he says. 'It was my safety net, and without their care and support I don't know where I'd be today.'
A brand-new model of how we do food banks
Hugh’s team had to work fast to keep supporting people who don’t have enough money for essentials while keeping them, and their volunteers, safe
The surge in numbers of people needing emergency food has happened at a time when many food banks and charities have had to close or reduce their service, as volunteers who are vulnerable or who need to care for their loved ones have been asked to self-isolate.
Community matters
Michelle Walsh is a Community Champion at the Tesco Coventry Arena Extra store
Each Tesco Extra store has a Community Champion, who acts as the link between Tesco and the different community groups in the local area, like churches, local schools and food banks.
Michelle Walsh, Community Champion at the Coventry Arena Extra store who has worked for Tesco for 35 years, explains how they support charities like food banks in the Trussell Trust’s network all year round.
'Normally my role involves speaking to local charities all the time to find out how they're doing and chat to them about how we might be able to help. I also go and help a local community cafe and am a reading partner at a local school twice a week, among other things.
'It feels so rewarding to be able to speak to the charities and hear what they need and how I can help. Sometimes, they'll ask for something we don't have, but it might become available a couple of weeks later and I'll know exactly who to call.
'At the end of the day, all our stores take stock of any food customers haven’t bought, and they’ll alert a different local charity every night via an app run by Tesco and the food charity FareShare, called FareShareGo, to let them know they can pick it up straight from the store to support the local community.
'We also have food collection points in all our Tesco Extras, where customers can donate food after they’ve done their shop. That’s where the food banks like Hugh’s come in. They’ll come into the store a couple of times a week to empty the collection points and make sure the food gets redistributed to those who need it most.
'The response from the community is always brilliant and that’s not changed since the beginning of the crisis. Even though people are now shopping for the essentials, and trying to do it as quickly as possible, they’re still making time to donate.'
‘At the start, almost overnight we lost half our volunteers’, explains Hugh. ‘So we had to look at a brand new model of how we do food banks.’
Hugh’s team moved the packing process into a main warehouse, from which the food parcels are then distributed by volunteers in the city, either at fixed locations or directly to families.
They also got in touch with their partners, including supermarkets like Tesco, to ask if they could help them scale up to support more people.
‘In the early days of lockdown, there were shortages at most shops which meant we were unable to buy in the quantities needed’, says Hugh. ‘Luckily, our partners really weighed in.'
A huge effort to scale up donations
Tesco has partnered with the Trussell Trust and food charity FareShare for over eight years. ‘Tesco was the first supermarket to allow the Trussell Trust to have permanent collection points in their stores, where customers can make donations to their local food banks. I think it was a recognition that many people in our communities were struggling’, says Hugh.
The goods customers donate through the permanent collection points it has across 540 of its larger stores go straight to the Trussell Trust and to FareShare for distribution to food banks, charities and community groups. Tesco then adds up how much food customers have donated, and tops it up by 20%.
In addition, at the end of each day, Tesco store colleagues look at what surplus food they have and share details on an app called FareShareGo. This sends a text to local community groups who are invited to collect the food from the store. FareShare has a network of 11,000 charities and works across more than 30 food warehouses throughout the UK. Around a million meals are distributed in this way every month.
But when Tesco’s community team spoke to the Trussell Trust and FareShare at the outset of the COVID-19 crisis, they heard the need was greater than ever.
To help, Tesco pledged to donate an additional £15 million worth of food over 12 weeks to support both charities. That's the equivalent of an extra 62 lorryloads of food a week.
In total, this means that together with what it already donates year-round, Tesco will donate over £50 million worth of food to support communities this year alone.
A new way of working together
‘Our partners, FareShare and the Trussell Trust, have been seeing increased demand from communities during the crisis and so the quantities we're donating at the moment are far larger than what we'd normally be sending out’, explains Dave Bolton, a Stock and Systems Manager at Tesco’s Distribution Centre in Reading.
‘That has meant we have had to create new ways of working to make sure everything runs smoothly’.
Dave Bolton, Stock and Systems Manager at Tesco, says, 'I couldn't be prouder to be playing a part in helping those most in need'
Tesco teams speak with the Trussell Trust and FareShare every week to understand what products they really need. There are about 25 products that food banks are especially short on, like UHT milk, tinned meat and tinned vegetables. To make sure food banks get these items in the volumes they need, Tesco orders direct from its suppliers and the donations are processed through six of its distribution centres across the country.
Dave goes on to explain; ‘Maintaining this huge increase in the quantity of food donations processed through the distribution centre has been a big challenge.’
Hugh and local Tesco Community Champion Michelle sort through some of the many crates of food donated by Tesco and destined for local community food banks
At the distribution centre where Dave works, in Reading, a whole new team has been created to ensure all the additional food Tesco has bought from its suppliers can quickly be redistributed to the charities it works with so it can go to those who need it most.
Hugh McNeill from Coventry Food Bank highlights the early role that Tesco played. 'In the early days of the lockdown, there were shortages at most shops.
'We were the first food bank to get a delivery from Tesco, and they have been at the forefront of the supplies we've been getting in ever since. Knowing that we've had that food coming in, twice a week, it's been great’.
‘In just a few weeks, they’ve donated around 21,000 kilos worth of food, which is the equivalent of around 9,000 meals’ worth of food. Without these donations, we’d really struggle to get vital food to people in the city.
In total, Tesco has donated an additional 9 million meals’ worth of food to FareShare and Trussell Trust since the beginning of the crisis.
Tesco customers have also played a vital role. 'We've had lots more donations in store,' explains Hugh. 'These have allowed us to increase the supply of food we have at a critical time.'
‘More than anything, I’m proud of the response from the community’
'It feels so rewarding to be able to speak to the charities and hear what they need and how I can help,' says Michelle
Hugh feels inspired by the people who’ve helped his team support those in need.
'Knowing that people are not going hungry in our city and that we are meeting a most basic human need – the need to have access to food – that’s something I’m really proud of.’
‘More than anything, I’m proud of the response from the community. I’m local to Coventry, and for me to see the response in financial donations, and donations of time and effort, has made me incredibly proud of how the community has come together to support one another.’
‘The feedback we've had from people is mainly one of thank you for being here, somebody actually cares and that's really important.'
'It's really important that when people come they feel valued and supported – coronavirus has shown us all that there are forces outside of our control that can have a huge impact on our lives. Poverty is like this. It locks people in, making it hard to break free. People need to know they haven’t done anything wrong, it’s not their fault.’
Dave Bolton, Stock and Systems Manager at Tesco, agrees with Hugh. 'I couldn't be prouder to be playing a part in helping those most in need.'
