Basildon, UK: Iveco UK is donating a Daily van to FareShare, the UK’s longest running food redistribution charity, through parent company, CNH Industrial’s Solidarity Fund.
Earlier this year, CNH Industrial joined others donating medical equipment, such as ventilators, PPE, electrical generators and ambulances to local healthcare organisations as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold of Europe and most of the rest of the world.
The company also donated $2m to the CNH Industrial Foundation and to other community projects around the globe. The foundation supports local areas in which the business operates, providing support in three main areas; education, health service and food security.
FareShare is just one of the community projects to have applied to the CNH Industrial Solidarity Fund for aid and has since taken delivery of a 3.5tonne refrigerated Iveco Daily van donated via Iveco UK. The new van will support the area most local to Iveco’s Basildon, Essex base.
The Ipswich regional distribution centre services 160 local charities, with 73 of those within Essex county lines. Of those, seven are in Basildon supporting a community centre, pre-school children, a community centre for the elderly, another that supports those with life-limiting conditions and disabilities and a further three assisting families with low or no incomes.
Co-founded with Sainsbury’s in 1994, FareShare is the longest running food redistribution charity in the UK, born to help ensure that while there are people going hungry, no good food should be wasted. Now in its 26th year, FareShare is the biggest operation of its kind in the UK and, since launching, has provided the equivalent of nearly 237 million meals.
Currently, the organisation uses a digital platform to link over 500 companies from the supply chain, from farmers and hauliers to the hospitality sector and large and small supermarkets with unsold foodstuffs to supported organisations via their 22 UK distribution centres. Almost 11,000 charities and community groups rely on the work that FareShare does, including homeless hostels, community centres, children’s breakfast and elderly lunch clubs, with over 924,300 people accessing supplies every week. FareShare also encourages those that it helps into paid work within the organisation, providing long-term benefits to those less fortunate.
Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, FareShare has continued to support frontline organisations supporting those most in need of assistance. Post-national lockdown it has seen a 90% increase in food delivered and tripled demand from new charities.
