As inflation rises again, to an 18-month high, it puts the spotlight back on food insecurity. With a shocking 14% of UK households now going hungry and 10.7 million tonnes of food still going to waste each year, the need for a stronger, more co-ordinated redistribution effort has never been clearer. 

That’s why the merger of FareShare – the UK’s largest food redistribution charity – and its London delivery partner The Felix Project is such massive news. It is potentially the first step in a much-needed move towards giving this vital sector of the charity landscape the visibility, support and strategic clout it so urgently needs.

The UK’s redistribution efforts

The fact is, despite the big supermarkets donating millions of meals every year, the UK’s food redistribution sector is comparatively tiny.

In the US, Feeding America is the country’s largest charity by revenue, while in the UK the combined revenue (or the food-based equivalent) of FareShare and The Felix Project is 10 times less than giant charities such as Macmillan, The British Red Cross and the British Heart Foundation.

And despite food prices continuing to dominate the news, somehow the fact that millions of our own population are going hungry has not fully captured the public consciousness as it has elsewhere.

The lack of effectiveness of the voice of food redistribution was illustrated starkly in June, when The Grocer revealed Defra had awarded £13.6m to charities to transform surplus farm produce unwanted by supermarkets into “healthy and nutritious” meals for millions of families in need.

However, it emerged more than £1.2m of the potential central fund that had been put up for grabs was withheld, because a number of charities “failed to meet the criteria”. It instead went back into the government’s coffers.

That speaks volumes not just of the Treasury’s current plight, but the lack of an effective political and fundraising voice for food redistribution, compared to other charity sectors.

However, building on their existing arrangements in London, this merger could bring collaboration to new levels and make that voice a lot louder.

A new voice for food redistribution

The Felix Project, whose CEO Charlotte Hill has been one of the more effective leaders in the sector in the past few years, was launched in 2016 by Justin and Jane Byam Shaw, named after their son who died from meningitis. With four depots in north, south, east and west London, which support around 1,200 community organisations, it also operates Felix’s Kitchen, which uses surplus food to cook around 5,000 nutritious meals every day.

In 2020 it became FareShare’s London delivery partner, a move which laid the groundwork for last week’s merger.

However, the revelation that it is the Felix name which will continue while the FareShare brand – after 30 years of operation – will effectively disappear has divided opinion.

“I was absolutely shocked that after three decades of building that brand they are now going to let it disappear,” says one source. “It’s very strange. FareShare is very well known by the public and had become synonymous with supermarkets and their fight against food waste and hunger.”

However, given the sentimental connection, it would have been difficult to persuade the Shaw family to drop their charity’s name. Former FareShare CEO George Wright believes the choice of name is the right one, adding that Felix has the potential to be propelled into the public imagination in a way his old organisation never could.

“I think that’s a very strong public-facing proposition, whereas FareShare is quite functional,” he says.

“If you look at London, everybody knows it,” he says. “FareShare has operated as a franchise operation. It’s been an umbrella. I think Felix will bring more notice to the sector.”

While the charities have said they’ll develop a full rebranding proposition in the coming months, the merger also reflects a broader shift in how the industry approaches food surplus – one that’s been gathering pace over the past two years. This includes the launch of the King’s Coronation Food Project, which has yet to ramp up before it can deliver anything like its full potential.

That project, which is seeking to embed consistent processes across the supply chain to redistribute food surplus, is also hoping to exploit good old-fashioned economies of scale while using the political influence of its backers – and they don’t come bigger than the King himself – to gain clout in Westminster.

For too long, ministers have talked a good game on tackling food poverty, yet failed to deliver the bold, systemic interventions the sector desperately needs.

If this new partnership can finally break through that inertia – and capture the public’s attention in the process – it will be a win for everyone, whatever name it goes by.

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