Show of support for FareShare's new depot

Tillery Valley, the national meal provider to the healthcare, education and local authority sectors, was one of the first companies in Wales to support the recent opening of the national food poverty and food re-distribution charity FareShare's Cardiff depot by providing both food and training assistance.

Tillery Valley, which is part of the Sodexo Group, has been working with FareShare for over two years to provide nutritional food to the homeless and needy.

The chilled and frozen foods supplier has the capacity to produce up to one million meals a week, working closely with the company's dietitians to ensure meals meet the consistency, temperature and nutritional quality required and to budget.

However, when menu changes are made, meals are inevitably wasted. Instead of throwing these meals in the bin, Tillery Valley delivers 'overs' that are fit for consumption to FareShare. FareShare then redistributes the food to some of the 700 community organisations and charities it supports across the UK.

Through the new Cardiff depot, chilled 'overs' which usually cannot be redistributed due to their short life at the point of release will be collected and distributed by FareShare's Cymru operation in Cardiff before becoming unusable.

To further support the scheme, Tillery Valley also donates £5 for every pallet of product it supplies to FareShare. This donation, although small, is essential in supporting the training of FareShare's 330 volunteers throughout the UK. Tillery Valley also hopes to send members of staff to volunteer with FareShare at the end of the year to further demonstrate its support.

Tillery Valley technical director Chris Woodbridge says: "The scheme we have set up with FareShare has proven a huge success and one which we hope to build on and develop in the future. It feels great that perfectly good food that would otherwise have been wasted will now go to a worthy cause."