EXPANDING INTO SURREY

Over a number of years, we have been crossing the Sussex borders into neighbouring Surrey to support a limited number of partners with surplus food. Surrey’s nine boroughs and two districts have an affluent reputation. Whilst this reputation in largely justified, census data shows pockets of high deprivation and need. In partnership with local authorities, charities and community groups, we will target our food where it will make the greatest impact.

In order to provide more food that is being requested by both existing charity partners and those on our waiting list we need a permanent base in the county. There are two main reasons for our conclusion. Firstly it is about range and distances. Our vehicles travelling up and down the A/ M23 from the South Coast limits the amount of trips we can manage, quantity of food we can move and length of time our volunteer Food Heroes are out on deliveries and collections. We are very conscious of the food miles we are adding. Secondly we know that having a permanent base makes accessing surplus in the county a lot more achievable. The new Regional Food Sourcing role is key to unlocking surplus food in Surrey.

We are not only working closely with local charity and community partners to make this happen but also with Surrey County Council to take this big development step.

Surrey has also opened an opportunity with our friends at Foodwise and Neat 2 Eat to take on running a Production Kitchen. The kitchen will allow us to say yes to more as well as difficult-to-use surplus and turn it into delicious, nutritionally packed meals.

SURREY WILL ALLOW US TO HAVE A FOCUS ON FROZEN FOOD AS WE DRAMATICALLY INCREASE OUR FROZEN STORAGE CAPACITY. IN ORDER TO PROCESS MORE FROZEN SURPLUS WE ARE PLANNING TO PILOT A NEW ‘FROZEN MEMBERSHIP’ OFFER

We will take all our best learning and honed skills from 20 years in Sussex into neighbouring Surrey. This will include our developed community volunteering programme as well as skills and employability opportunities, student internships and corporate partnership volunteering.