At the end of June a petition was published and although there have been signatures on most days ever since there are still less than 3,500 signatures and sadly it will come to an end in a few days.

Although 3,500 signatures makes it at the high end of the e-petitions, unless it can extend to 10,000 signatures it won’t be responded to by the Government in the New Year and it would require 100,000 signatures for Parliament to be able to debate it. The petition ends on 29th December so we have six more days. Many of the other large petitions receive signatures of around 3,500 in one hour and achieve 100,000 within a couple of days. However it is not clear how to achieve that. One of my friends stated a few days ago

There’s a a shocking lack of signatures I can think of a few possible reasons, but have always tried to remain factual on social media. Whatever the reasons, it’s a disgrace.

He went on to write

surely if every member of staff / volunteer / as many service users as possible, from organisations that benefit from FareShare signed the petition it would be a big help? I’d target them. When I worked at a charity, the whole service hinged around our regular FareShare deliveries – access to food, cookery and independent living, healthy eating, difficult conversations with clients while cooking lunch made much easier, the list goes on. There should be well over 100 signatures just from that small organisation.

So please could you consider signing the petition and also let other people know about it, particularly if you are involved in settings that benefit from surplus food being distributed to it. The detail of the petition is as follows and the website it at https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/589500

Provide additional funding for redistributing surplus food

In April the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee called on the Government to provide ongoing funding to redistribute surplus food from the farmgate and across the supply chain to food aid providers. In June the Government said there were no plans for further grants. This should change.

A Minister at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair told the Committee “that the Government takes food waste very seriously” and that she expects “this to be an area in which we continue to work as Government”. We need the Government to provide public funding to enable the many agencies to carry out the work necessary to prevent food waste and improve food security.