Eradicating Food Poverty in East London

CFE are a multi-award winning community organisation dedicated to tackling food poverty and waste by sourcing food surplus to requirements and redistributing to local partners. CFE have been serving the community in East London for over 20 years. 

We are made up of experienced, creative, motivated, and committed individuals and groups led by Eric Samuel, MBE. We are responsive, solutions focused and adaptive to the directional voice prompted by the needs of our community and desires to create beneficial and measurable impact. 

What We've Achieved So far!

• Serving the community since 2002
• We deliver to over 85 community projects in East London
• We feed 22,000 people per month
• We currently deliver 11,000kgs of food each month
• We currently host 10 active volunteers, and 100's of annual guest volunteers

We're Creating a Culture of Care!

CFE have big plans over the next two years. The food crisis is worsening and we witness the damage it causes our city on a daily basis. As such, we will significantly overhaul our capacity and output inline with the increasing demand for our services in East London. Significant care and support is needed in our communities and we know we're ready and best suited to deliver!

By 2024 we will:

• Deliver to 200 community organisations in East London
• Deliver 35,000kgs of food each month
• Feed up to 60,000 people each month
• Save 87,500kgs equivalent of carbon each month (1,050,000kgs per annum)
• Engage and manage 35 active volunteers each week
• Host 20+ educational workshops for schools and individuals per annum.
• Host 10+ community outreach events throughout East London per annum
• Establish thriving commercial operations ensuring longterm business sustainability and growth
• Create strong relationships with public funders and trusts across London. Achieving grants and working alongside them to deliver projects of significant social value in the community.

More families are experiencing food poverty due to the dramatic rise in the cost of living, the increase in gas and fuel prices and its knock on effect on the cost of food. 

CFE with our experience, network of partners, dedication and passion are best placed to empower the community to tackle food poverty.  

Our community needs us more than ever, here’s why:

- In 2022, 86% of Londoners have reported an increase of price in their weekly food shop.

- The boroughs with the highest proportion of child poverty are Tower Hamlets (56%), Newham (50%) and Hackney (48%). Compared to the London average of 37%

-8.4 million people in the UK are struggling to eat. 1.5 million adults in London and 400,000 children experience hunger.

Use of food banks has increased 180% since Covid-19*. CFE donates large quantities of fresh fruit, vegetables, food parcels and commodities to those food banks. Serving over 10,000 people a month.

- Nearly 10 billion tons of food is wasted each year in the UK. This equates to the emission of 25 million tons of greenhouse gases*. Our food redistribution operation is currently saving up to 3 tons of food waste per day.

- In 2020/21, 4.2 million people (6%) were in food insecure households (both low and very low food security). This included 9% of children, 7% of working age adults, and 1% of pensioners.

Source; Trust for London, 2022 Source; Wrap food report, 2021, Source; Trussell Trust State of Hunger, May 2021.

Helping us reach our target will enable us to;

- purchase an additional delivery van and significantly increase our capacity for output.

- Employ part time roles for warehouse assistance, volunteer coordination and administration management.

- Facilitate a complete digital overhaul, revamping our online presence and helping us engage with our supporters on a day to day basis. 

- Utilise company wide productivity solutions in optimised CRM & Volunteer software platforms.

- Aquire branded banners, vests, marketing collateral and vehicle magnets to optimise our visibility and outreach.

-  Develop our outreach projects and educational events to help empower and educate our community in tackling food poverty. 

With your support for CFE we see no limits to what we can achieve, tackling food poverty and food waste in East London and beyond.

Testimonials

"All the donations that we receive are gratefully appreciated and used by the local community who use the centre for events or food bank or for everyday use. So everything we receive is used. So thank you for the support you give us with the donations"

Tracy Lambert, Community Cafe Coordinator, RDLAC, Newham

“Community Food Enterprise has been our main fruit and veg supplier at St Hilda’s Food Co-op  for several years now. They make ordering a straightforward process and are super reliable, come rain or shine they always, without fail,  deliver our full order on time.  Community Food Enterprise have also been very flexible which is important for us as a small Food Co-op,  it means that we have been able to try out smaller quantities of some products and order exactly what we need which helps us keep our waste to a minimum.  We really couldn’t wish for a better supplier, the produce is top quality and their customer service is excellent.”   

Jenny Jones, Food Co-op Co-ordinator, St. Hilda's East Community Centre, Tower Hamlets

Rewards: You can now get rewards for your donation!

Custom Tote Bags: Get a custom CFE tote bag in Original,Rose or Mango finish. Limited supply.

Fruit & Veg Box: East London's own Fruit 4 London has graciously partnered with CFE to supply rewards to our supporters, help us boost our donations and get us closer to our total!