A charity that distributes surplus food to people in need across London, through an online site, has received over £100,000 to expand its services.

The City of London Corporation’s charitable funder, City Bridge Trust, has given Plan Zheroes a £108,400 grant towards the growth of its live and interactive website which allows businesses to donate their surplus food to community organisations.

Plan Zheroes, based in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, is a charity tackling food poverty and food waste. Its mission is to inspire and facilitate connections between food businesses and their local charities/voluntary organisations, and to simplify the process of donating surplus food to those in need.

The charity highlights that food waste by the hospitality and food services sector is estimated to be 920,000 tonnes - 75% of which could be eaten by people. This is alongside increasing numbers of people accessing foodbanks, indicating that more people are struggling to afford to feed themselves.

It aims to relieve food poverty by redistributing food from businesses to charities that are feeding people in need such as homeless charities and those that support the elderly, low income families and people with mental health or substance misuse issues.

Over the last three years Plan Zheroes have prevented nearly 70 tonnes of food from going to waste – the equivalent of 140,000 meals for homeless people, refugees, the elderly and people on low incomes. It achieves this through a live, interactive online platform.

Alison Gowman, Chairman of the City of London Corporation’s City Bridge Trust committee, said:

“Since 2009 this project has grown a huge amount with the support of volunteers, businesses and charities. They have now come up with an extremely innovative and efficient way to distribute surplus food.

“There is so much food being wasted every single day yet there are people that go hungry everyday - this charity has taken a huge step forward to helping solve this.

“City Bridge Trust is committed to tackling disadvantage across the capital and making London a fairer and better place to live”

Laura Hopper, CEO of Plan Zheroes said:

"With more and more Londoners struggling to afford to feed themselves and their families, new solutions are needed to ensure that good quality food reaches those who need it.

“We’re pleased and grateful that City Bridge Trust is supporting our work to develop the network of businesses and charities that use our online platform for surplus food donations.''

City Bridge Trust is London’s biggest independent grant giver, making grants of £20 million a year to tackle disadvantage across the capital. The Trust has awarded around 7,700 grants totalling over £370 million since it first began in 1995. It helps achieve the Corporation’s aim of changing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Londoners

ENDS

Media Enquiries

Kristina Drake

Media Officer, City of London Corporation

Kristina.Drake@cityoflondon.gov.uk

07710860884 / 020 7332 1125