Deliveroo has launched a mobile food collection service, ‘Collecteroo’ in partnership with the Trussell Trust to help provide more emergency food parcels to those in need.
The service will see e-vans collecting unopened and in-date food items from people’s homes and delivering them to some of the food banks in the charities network across London, Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow and Cardiff.
This comes following research commissioned by the delivery service which found that 74% of Brits have unopened food items in their cupboards that they would happily donate to food banks, while the Trussell Trust has launched an emergency appeal as the cost-of-living crisis has created a ‘tsunami of need’.
Rolling out this week, food collections of tinned items such as fruit, meat, fish, tomatoes and pasta sauce, as well as UHT milk or long-life juice can be arranged via Collecteroo’s designated website from today, with applications closing on 28 November.
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“Our partnership with the Trussell Trust has already provided 1.5 million meals to food banks and communities across the country, thanks to Deliveroo customers in the UK who have donated so far,” Deliveroo CEO and founder, Will Shu said.
“Our research highlights that people have food in their cupboards that they would like to donate, so working closely with the Trussell Trust, our ‘Collecteroo’ service will help make it easier for people to donate by connecting local residents to local food banks. Together with our consumers, we are committed to helping to tackle hunger across the UK.”
Trussell Trust director of network programmes and innovation, Dannie Malone added: “Food banks in the Trussell Trust network are facing their toughest winter yet and expect to distribute more than 1.3 million emergency food parcels over the next six months – more than half a million of these parcels will be for children.
“This drastic increase in need means that food banks are currently distributing more food than they are receiving and this is placing significant pressure on them at a time when they’re also struggling with rising operational costs including energy bills and petrol prices.
“The ‘Collecteroo’ initiative will make a real difference to our food banks in these cities by making it easier to donate and helping to ensure that they have the stock they need to keep going this winter.”
