Spar partnership with FareShare South West redistributes equivalent of 32,000 meals

Spar South West’s primary distributor, Appleby Westward Ltd, is making a huge impact on the fight against food waste and hunger in its trading area thanks to its partnership with FareShare South West and Gregory Logistics. The partnership officially began at the start of 2024, but the company was already making donations of food to support the charity during the previous autumn and winter.

Between January and June this year, Appleby Westward redistributed the equivalent of 24,400 meals via the partnership (), taking its total to the equivalent of 32,000 meals. Those came from 10.2 tonnes of food which was distributed via charities and community groups to 54,000 people. Although an ‘average’ meal is tricky to define, research has been used to derive a factor for expressing food surplus as ‘meal equivalents’.

With warehouses in Plymouth and Bristol, FareShare South West rescues good, surplus food from local suppliers and delivers it to more than 380 charities, schools and community groups. In the south west, it has been distributed to 241 charities and community groups, including 66 that work with children and young people, 56 that work with the homeless, 47 older people’s community groups and 11 that support people with mental health issues. Across the school summer holidays surplus food has also been redistributed to more than 50 children’s activity groups.

Michal Czynienik, trading manager at Appleby Westward, said: “We’re delighted with how well our collaboration is going. The number of equivalent meals we’ve been able to provide is amazing, as is the impact this has had on recipients. It’s great to be able to support the local community in this way and reduce food waste. I’m very excited about the future of the partnership and our next significant milestone.”

FareShare South West is keen to get its message out to more Spar distributors and is working with Appleby Westward on a case study to show other distributors how the national FareShare network can help redistribute surplus food to increase their social impact.