Coronavirus (COVID-19): Food Fund guidance for local authorities

There is a well-established network of over 1000 community food organisations across Scotland. Through No Deal Brexit mitigation work we know that local authorities have worked closely with community food organisations and national stakeholders like FareShare to ensure a coordinated approach to food provision and links to wider support. 

Local partners will be aware of community organisations providing food in their area, including food banks and other parcel providers, and those providing shared meals. Many have already adapted their approach to focus on home delivery or collection. 

FareShare

FareShare is a charity and strategic national partner that distributes surplus and donated food from the food industry to community organisations. They operate from four regional depots and have considerable reach, supporting organisations in every local authority area. Contact details are provided below. The Scottish Government has provided FareShare with additional funding to purchase and distribute additional food to organisations responding to food insecurity without membership charge. This provision can complement but should not replace structured public sector responses. 

Other national investments to support specific groups:

The Food Train

The Food Train aims to prevent older people from becoming malnourished, including through the delivery of groceries. This is a paid service and the people receiving the food deliveries pay a subscription to cover the cost of the food and its delivery. The Food Train may also be well placed to provide advice on reaching older people.

Social Bite

Social Bite is a social business with cafes in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen which supports people experiencing homelessness, they are providing lunch bags to people in need during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

National Independent Funders

• Provision for of up to £1 million of funding initially from the Food Fund to support the community food network via a coalition of independent funders led by SCVO to ensure reach across the country.  Details will be accessible via https://scvo.org.uk/support/coronavirus/funding/for-organisations/scottish-government in due course.
• Cash for Kids provide funding to community organisations that work with children and families facing disadvantage. SG funding will support Cash for Kids to provide vouchers for families struggling to cover costs of food and fuel.

Other Scottish Government Funds

• The Third Sector Resilience Fund to support organisations that already deliver services and find themselves in financial difficulty as a result of COVID-19:
• The Supporting Communities Fund will support small scale community resilience activity. The Wellbeing Fund will enable national and local action. Details will be accessible via https://scvo.org.uk/support/coronavirus/funding/for-organisations/scottish-government in due course.

Other resources

Local partners may want to consider wider assets in designing structured responses, including employees in the transport sector, Community Learning and Development staff with significant reach in to communities, and cleaning staff.

FareShare contact