In other countries we’d call it aid. Lorries arriving at the warehouse full of food: surplus from supermarkets, wonky veg from farms, mislabelled products from wholesalers. It’s Thursday, and by the end of the week 11 tonnes of food are due to have gone in and out, delivered to 20 different locations on any given day.
But the 170 regular volunteers and 28 staff behind this massive operation, facilitating some 6.2 million meals a year, are not working to get food to shops or restaurants. Instead, the lorries leaving the depot call in at food banks, elderly lunch clubs, homelessness charities, women’s refuges and after-school clubs for children.
You may assume this doesn’t happen here, trucks full of food rushing around to those who need it, who do not have…