Deliveroo dishes up £50,000 to back our Help the Hungry appeal
Delivery giant backs our campaign to open the nation’s largest social ‘dark kitchen’ and tackle food poverty, as Arjun Neil Alim reports
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Your support makes all the difference.Deliveroo has served up £50,000 to back our Help the Hungry campaign as we work to open the nation’s largest social “dark kitchen” to challenge food poverty in the UK.
The online delivery giant has offered a package of support including cash, expertise and food supply for The Independent’s plan to open central London’s largest social dark kitchen where meals are made for delivery. This will be a lasting legacy of our campaign to tackle food poverty.
The donation comes as Deliveroo announces a partnership with the Co-op and The Felix Project, our appeal partner, to deliver 20,000 free meals to vulnerable families in London by the end of the year.
Will Shu, chief executive and founder of Deliveroo, said: “We want to play our part in supporting families in need and we are committed to working with our partners to provide food to families this Christmas. The Felix Project is doing incredibly important work at the moment and we’re pleased to be working with such great partners to make a contribution to families across London.”
The delivery firm has opened 32 Deliveroo Editions dark kitchens that allow established restaurants to offer their menus in other areas. The Independent’s social dark kitchen, in partnership with The Felix Project, plans to use the same model to produce more than 1.5 million healthy meals for vulnerable people each year.
Deliveroo also announced that it has partnered with Covent Garden grocer Sheringhams to deliver thousands of items of fresh fruit and vegetables to vulnerable families. The company has pledged to use its national delivery network to support those in need.
Most of the food will be delivered to The Felix Project’s Enfield depot, where it will be distributed to local charities, community organisations and frontline services. Among the recipients is Freedom’s Ark church in Seven Sisters, Tottenham.
Fatima, a mother of four whose husband had to stop work as a taxi driver during lockdown, receives food aid. She said: “The community food hub has been of great support to me and my family these past few months. The supplies have helped us to cope.”
Alongside its support for our food appeal, Deliveroo has donated £200,000 to two NHS trusts in the capital on behalf of its customers. The Royal Free Charity and the UCLH Charity each received £100,000 as a gesture of thanks to the NHS for its efforts during the pandemic. The money came from Deliveroo’s Supporting the NHS campaign.
Jon Spiers, chief executive of the Royal Free Charity, said: “With a donation as generous as this we can do so much to help with the wellbeing of the staff at our hospitals at this very difficult time. None of them has faced anything like this during their careers.”
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