Premier Foods announces long-term partnership with FareShare  

Premier Foods has announced a new long-term partnership with FareShare, the charity fighting hunger and food waste.

As part of the multifaceted partnership, which will span five years, Premier Foods will provide food donations directly to FareShare, which will be redistributed to nearly 9,500 charities and community groups in its network.

Premier Foods will also provide funding to enable FareShare to redistribute food across its network of 31 warehouses across the UK.

The company said the partnership will help to put food on the tables of people in need, at a time when 9.9 million people in the UK are struggling to afford to eat. Besides, following the recent launch of FareShares cost of living crisis appeal for food donations, it will also help reduce the amount of food going to waste.

“Food poverty is an issue that impacts more than one in ten people in the UK. Yet, at the same time, over 2 million tonnes of edible food is wasted every year, the equivalent to 1.3 billion meals. As one of the UK’s leading food businesses, and home to some of the nation’s favourite brands, we know we have a key role to play in tackling these important, interlinked issues and believe we can make a real difference in the communities we operate in,” Alex Whitehouse, Premier Foods chief executive, said.

The initiative builds on Premier Foods’ continued efforts to tackle food waste, which includes last year doubling the amount of food redistributed for human consumption to 750 tonnes and achieving zero waste to landfill status since 2016.

Building on this progress and drawing on FareShare’s expertise, Premier Foods will further review 10 of its manufacturing sites to identify and unlock innovative new ways to reduce food waste even further in its own operations and encourage suppliers and consumers to do the same.

Premier Foods will also work in partnership with its retailer partners and FareShare to co-design creative marketing campaigns.

Lindsay Boswell, FareShare chief executive, said: “We’re incredibly grateful to be partnering with Premier Foods to help achieve their commitments to deliver the equivalent of one million meals and 1,000 volunteering days a year, which will help us get good-to-eat, surplus food, that may otherwise go to waste, to our network of nearly 9,500 charities across the UK. Alongside this, we’re honoured to be part of their ambitions to halve the Company’s food waste by 2030, which aligns perfectly with our mission to tackle food waste and hunger in the UK.”