Peterborough Food Partnership joins network to tackle hunger

To address growing needs during the coronavirus pandemic, Peterborough Council for Voluntary services (PCVS), with the help of National Lottery funding, set up the PFP in April last year.

It is now a member of Food Power, a programme run by Sustain - an alliance for better food and farming which works with local communities across the UK to strengthen their ability to reduce food shortages and tackle its root causes.

PFP was originally the Food Poverty Forum, which was a regular meeting held by PCVS in order to look at the issues surrounding food scarcity in the city.

As the coronavirus pandemic hit, PCVS discovered that communities were beginning to feel pressure as the number of organisations that were seeking funding for food began to rise suddenly.

The different groups have now come together to avoid duplication, share information and resources and reduce costs.

Lauren Kendrick, communities development coordinator at PCVS, said: “The initial meeting was set up as a network aiming to get food to those who were desperately in need as well as focus on the sustainable environmental aspect of food redistribution to ensure minimal food is wasted.

“A real sense of desire to work together was felt by all those involved, whether their organisation had always worked in food distribution or had set up quickly to fulfil a need.

“We brought together those working in hot food distribution like the city college, to those who had worked on the ground for a long time like Food For Nought and the Peterborough Foodbank.”

In the run up to Christmas, PFP - which is made up of 13 local organisations - held a number of open meetings regarding food provision over the festive period.

This year it will continue to hold open food meetings for all volunteers, organisations, businesses, education, religious and authority representatives to serve the needs of the city.

To find out more about PFP or the support PCVS provides, email: [email protected].