City Harvest at work

BUSINESSES can “do the right thing” by offloading surplus food for free to a charity which delivers it to hungry mouths across the capital.

The City Harvest project has grown from humble beginnings to become a massive organisation with 18 lorry drivers working full time.

It focuses on collecting nutritious food and supplying it to struggling people so they can maintain a healthy diet as the “cost of living crisis tightens its grip”.

Volunteers have already noticed changing trends forced by the energy crisis with people at food banks requesting quicker to cook food and less hard vegetables because of long boiling times.

The charity collects from high street businesses, farms, distribution centres, events and hospitality and estimates it has “rescued” 37 million meals worth of food from simply going in the bin in this way.

One of the charity’s organisers Cristina Proietti said: “When the football matches were postponed the other day for the queen, we went to the Emirates Stadium to pick up their food that was going to go to waste. We provide a rapid response in that respect.

“We take everything except alcohol and hot food. The priority is fresh food and veg. We can keep things refrigerated in a cold chain. We have to collect from events at for example Excel centre, Kensington Olympia, where maybe some food companies have exhibited samples and don’t want to take them.”

Cristina Proietti

City Harvest already delivers free to 25 Camden charities and 15 Islington charities.

There is a waiting list for organisations in receipt of the food but the charity has capacity to collect from more businesses in Islington and Camden.

Reflecting on the crisis, Ms Proietti said eating habits were already changing because of the energy bills crisis.

She said: “Most recently, due to energy prices, we are getting reports of people wanting ingredients for shorter cooking times, and softer food. People won’t be cooking from scratch, less will be homemade.”

She added: “People will be wanting quicker food that may not be so nutritious.

“You could infer from that that there is going to be a nutrition crisis.

“In Stoke Newington, for example, we’re hearing fewer people are wanting hard root veg, because they are wonder­ing how long will it take to boil the water and cook something like that.”

People looking to avoid turning on gas hobs for too long could eat more healthy stir fries, said Ms Proietti, adding: “Potatoes have been cheap and filling for people on low incomes, but they might not be able to boil them so often in the future.”

Another organiser Fiona Hollis said: “Nutritious food is really what we hang our hat on as a charity because without nutrition, people face physical and mental ill health. Wellbeing is about thriving not surviving.”

She said lockdown revealed a “whole new level of need” that has not gone away since the removal of Covid safety restrictions, adding: “We assumed the numbers may drop after lockdown, but lockdown tapped into a whole group of people really struggling and weren’t used to needing support.

“City Harvest offers free solutions to food companies who have surplus food and would like it to go to human consumption.”