A volunteer day with FareShare Greater Manchester
We spend most of our time getting signs out the door and onto buildings, but earlier this month, the team swapped forklifts and drill bits for tins of beans and trays of carrots.
Food that feeds, not food that’s wasted
FareShare Greater Manchester is part of the UK’s biggest food redistribution charity. It takes surplus food from supermarkets, suppliers and factories — stuff that’s perfectly good but not going to make it to shelves — and get it to people who actually need it.
From school breakfast clubs to foodbanks, hostels and community kitchens, the food goes to organisations that make sure it doesn’t end up in the bin.
In 2024, it redistributed 57,000 tonnes of food, reaching a million people. Not bad, that.
Our shift
We joined the crew at FareShare for a day at their Openshaw depot. First up: sorting the mountains of donated stock coming in.
Then we helped get the orders ready for delivery — stacking, packing, checking dates and labelling boxes. Some of us even jumped in the van for the afternoon drop-offs across Manchester. The regular workers and volunteers are clearly focused and dedicated; it’s a well-oiled machine.
The bigger picture
- Hours Donated = 54
- FareShare Greater Manchester and FareShare+ distributed 6.8 tonnes of food across Greater Manchester
- 3.8 tonnes of this was Fruit & Veg
- Enough to make 16,370 meals
- This food went to 40 community and charity groups, feeding at least 4,600 people across the region
- 76% of this food was at risk of going to waste.
- This food being eaten rather than going to waste helped reduce 13.6.tonnes of Embedded CO2 Emissions, leading to a positive impact on the environment.
Not bad for a day’s work. (And it definitely got the steps in.)
Big thanks
Let’s be honest, things are tough out there. Demand for foodbanks keeps going up, and organisations like FareShare are picking up the slack. It felt good to play a small part in helping make sure good food ends up on tables, not in landfill.
Big thanks to the FareShare team for having us. You made us feel right at home.
