Food Poverty is tackled in Carmarthenshire thanks to partnership between food redistribution charity FareShare Cymru and The Warren restaurant

From September 2022, community projects in Carmarthenshire will be able to access good quality surplus food from FareShare Cymru, part of the network supported by England International footballer Marcus Rashford. This is thanks to a partnership with Deri Reed, owner of The Warren restaurant in Carmarthen.

Together, FareShare Cymru and The Warren will coordinate deliveries of surplus food to charities and community groups in Carmarthenshire. These include community cafes, community pantries and residential projects, which will use the food to support people experiencing poverty, partly due to the rising cost-of-living, while also providing wraparound services such as nutrition skills, cookery courses and providing a space for people to come together to prevent isolation and loneliness.

Deri is looking for volunteers based in Carmarthen to help with driving the van, transporting the food from the hub to the charities and community groups which are receiving it.

In Wales around 400,000 tonnes of food is wasted each year. If only 1% of that is edible, it is enough to contribute to over 9 million meals. This is at a time when almost a quarter of the Welsh population is living in poverty. FareShare Cymru turns an environmental problem into a social solution, by rescuing food that would have otherwise gone to waste, from across the supply chain.

The first delivery to Carmarthen, in partnership with The Warren, will start in early September 2022. The partnership will then support charities in Ceredigion in early 2023 and Pembrokeshire in summer 2023.

Deri Reed from The Warren says…

I am thrilled to be helping the FareShare Cymru team expand their services to Carmarthen & beyond!

As well as tackling food poverty, FareShare Cymru saved the equivalent of 2330 tonnes of CO2 in 2021/22. It has been estimated that if food waste was a country, it would be the third-highest emitter of greenhouse gases after the US and China, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.