On Tuesday there was a discussion that took place in Parliament at the Westminster Hall called Co-operatives and Alternative Businesses: Local Authority Support and one of the contributions came from Chris Stephens who is the Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Levelling Up). He spoke several times and on the final time during his statement he referred to FareShare with this comment. It will be great if other MPs will endorse that comment and raise it up in Parliament in the future. The whole of the discussion is available from here and this was his comment

It is hardly surprising that the number of co-operatives in the UK is growing to meet the challenge of soaring levels of food poverty. FareShare, the largest distributor of charitable and surplus food in Britain, supplies about 9,500 groups, including food banks, co-ops, community cafés and school clubs, but it currently has a waiting list of 1,500 organisations. That shows the challenge of dealing with the cost-of-living crisis. Its head of marketing noted:

“We believe this is just the tip of the iceberg for the number of charities and community groups needing more support… We do not have enough food to meet this soaring demand, so we’re asking the government to provide us with £25m to help us unlock an additional 42,500 tonnes of surplus food, the equivalent of 100m meals, to the people worst hit by the cost of living crisis.”

That shows the very real challenge facing citizens across these islands. The idea that the growing demand for affordable food is an indictment of the lack of action in providing adequate support through the cost of living crisis is echoed by other stakeholders.