Peterborough food charity increases meals available to residents in need thanks to M&S

A new app, launched in March 2020 is used to notify charities when surplus food is available, helping to increase donations and stop food going to waste. Since the app launch, M&S Serpentine Green has provided over 45,000 meals to the local community.

Food for Nought delivers surplus food to a wide variety of food banks and community fridges in Peterborough.

Cocoa Fowler, Founder of Food for Nought in Peterborough said, “We’ve had a great relationship with M&S since we first started working with them. We really work together with our local stores, as part of one big team, and have been able to deliver some fantastic products to help the wider community. During the pandemic we’ve noticed an increase in the number of people in need of support and we’ve been proud to work with M&S to meet that demand and to reduce food wastage.”

Adam Thomson, Store Manager at M&S Serpentine Green said, “When we have surplus food our absolute priority is for it to end up on someone’s plate, through our charity redistribution programme with Neighbourly. We’re thrilled that the app has already helped to make a difference to charities like Food for Nought who do such an incredible job in our local community. By providing charities with updates in real-time, they’re able to collect even more meals to feed the people they support and help us to prevent food going to waste.”

Since 2015, M&S stores have supported over 2,000 local causes nationwide, from food banks to youth clubs and hospices, donating over 21 million meals so far to those in need. In partnership with Neighbourly the new colleague app is now in all 585 M&S stores, enabling many of them to more than double their food redistribution rates. Across the UK, more than ten million meals have been donated since 1st March 2020.

M&S is always looking for new partners to work with. Local charity and community groups who would like to get involved in the food surplus programme or other charity initiatives are encouraged to email [email protected] to find out more.