We support a wide variety of organisations with their food needs, from homelessness charities to primary school Breakfast Clubs and from lunch clubs for the elderly to food banks giving out emergency food supplies.
Find out more about our member charities.
How do we sign up?
To start the membership sign up process, complete the online form. This is managed by our national partner charity FareShare UK, who’ll pass your information on to us.
Once we’ve received your application, we’ll get back to you as soon as possible. After we’ve had a chat, and if we’re able to support you with food, we’ll come to visit you to take you through the sign-up process and complete a kitchen check.
When you sign up to become a FareShare South West member, you can expect a food order to be made up by our amazing volunteers each week based on your organisation’s needs, and the food profile we’ve created together.
Download our membership factsheet to find out more
We couldn’t do what we do without the incredible support of Fareshare South West, whose amazing team keeps both of our hubs well stocked with a huge variety of food.
– Graham, Tavi Helps
Where does FareShare South West food come from?
The food we supply is fresh, varied and high quality. It is classed as surplus for any number of reasons which do not affect the food itself, from packaging errors and promotions ending to seasonal produce. The food is rescued from farmers, growers, manufacturers, suppliers and from some of the big supermarket chains. Around half of what we rescue from the food industry is fresh veg, fresh fruit and dairy.
FareShare South West follows stringent policies and procedures for storage and transportation to meet all food safety legislation.
Find out more about our food partners
By providing a great assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables, many different types of meat proteins, a vast variety of ambient foods, you have made the work we do feasible and, I must say, a lot more interesting! Without FareShare South West, we would not have been able to do what we have done in the past year. And by partnering with you, we have all saved quite a lot of food from the bin.
– Harry, B&A Church, Bristol
Can you guarantee which foods we’ll receive?
As we deal with surplus food, we can never guarantee the exact food you’ll get. Instead, we build a food profile for each of our members that meets your organisation’s needs. Each week we put together an order for you based on the stock we have, and our volunteers pick and pack it for you. We receive everything from fish to fresh fruit, and from cheeses to beans. If we have excess stock that day then you may well get some extra freebies too!
Is there a cost to my organisation?
FareShare South West is a part of the national FareShare network, but we are a small, local, grassroots independent charity. We rely on membership fees, donations, grants and our volunteers to run our warehouses and deliver food. We cannot provide you with free food.
To contribute towards our operational costs we ask for a fee from all full members. This cost starts at £260/quarter or £21 per week to receive a regular supply of food from our warehouse. FareShare Go, our supermarket collection service, is provided free of charge to supplement your main food supply. On average, FareShare South West charity members save a huge £7,900 on their food bill each year. This means they can invest in other vital services.
