As the price of food stays high, supermarkets are donating less surplus food, and day-to-day running costs keep rising, our network of food banks, emergency food providers, and affordable food clubs need to find ways to cut costs. During lockdown, we ran a successful storage and distribution hub, and we’d like to do it again and give the best possible support to our amazing community. We know it’s working elsewhere across the country, and we know we can get better prices for our network if we can bulk buy.
But here’s the challenge: we need space.
We’re looking for a corporate partnership where we can deliver meaningful change for our city, while our partner supports us with a free or low-cost storage facility. We’re keen to support any partner who comes forward, and we can come up with a bespoke agreement that benefits us both (volunteer days in our gardens, food education, we have lots of ideas!).
What do we need?
We’ve put a spec below, but we appreciate your space might not fit all of the criteria. Please still speak to us, there are a whole range of ways our network can make the most of spaces donated. Please share this with anyone you know who might be able to support us, it needs to go far and wide!
A big thank you in advance to anyone who gets in touch, we really appreciate you supporting the vital work of our network!
Specifics of a food processing/storage space:
- Space required: minimum floor space 60m sq (ideally split over 2 rooms, but this can be achieved with partitions in one), previously large halls have worked well (basketball court size)
- Flat entrance with goods access for large delivery vehicles and space for volunteer drivers to park outside (pref no parking restrictions)
- Doorways that are at least 70cm wide and not tight turns (food delivery cages)
- Ground Floor level (ideally although if there are large lifts to enable access to other floors this is ok)
- Electricity & Heating
- Windows/ventilation (ventilation more important if there are kitchen facilities)
- Toilets & hand washing facilities
- Kitchen, refrigeration or freezer space (would be ideal but not 100 % necessary)
- Space to install a walk-in fridge
- Permission to store fresh fruit & veg (would be ideal but can stick to ambient)
- Rodent proof (good condition walls etc)
- Wifi (would be nice but can put our own temp in)
- Access – Mon to Fri day times, occasional weekends and late nights
- Good security
