FareShare

Nearly 1 in 7 people in the UK, including 3 million children, struggle to afford enough healthy food. At the same time, 4.6 million tonnes of edible food are wasted every year before reaching people's plates - enough to make 10 billion meals. This is not only a tragic loss but also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

FareShare tackles this imbalance by rescuing good surplus food and redistributing it to frontline charities and community groups across the UK.

FareShare takes good-to-eat surplus food, which is unsold or unwanted by the food industry, and redistributes it, through a network of nearly 8,500 charities and community organisations.

Working with a network of 17 regional partners, over 6,000 volunteers, and nearly 8,500 local charities, FareShare provides nutritious food to over a million people each year. This includes children's breakfast clubs, lunch groups for older people, and grassroots organisations supporting those experiencing isolation, homelessness, or hardship.

FareShare exists not only to combat food poverty but also food waste. It is still often cheaper to let unsold good-to-eat food rot in the ground, use it for animal feed, anaerobic digestion or send it to landfill, than redistribute it to people. Food waste accounts for at least 8% of global CO2 emissions - if it were a country, food waste would be third, behind USA and China, in terms of emissions. 

In the UK, food waste accounts for between 6 and 7% of total greenhouse gas. FareShare's operations focuses on reducing this impact through reusing the food which would otherwise contribute to the country's emissions.

In 2023/24, FareShare prevented 106,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions and 141 billion litres of water from going to waste. For every tonne of surplus food FareShare redistributes, they prevent the waste of 2 tonnes of embedded CO2e emissions and 2.66 million litres of water.

The Quatrefoil Giving Fund has committed to 3 years of unrestricted funding to support FareShare in fighting hunger and tackling food waste across the UK.