The Teapot Project Needs Your Help

We have some not so great news. So I’ll cut to it...

Fareshare, our largest supplier of surplus food, have had to temporarily close their regional branch in Ipswich Suffolk due to the forced closure of their warehouse building. They’re frantically looking for a new site to operate from, and hope to find something soon. In the meantime, as they are our largest supplier, our fresh fruit and veg has been almost totally wiped out. 

We still rescue potatoes and onions from a farm, and of course we still stop a fair bit of chicken going to waste, but there’s a lot we can’t offer until we have either worked out an agreement with Fareshare that allows us to intercept the food directly from their sources, or they have found a new premises and resolved the post brexit issues now emerging due to a severe lack of HGV drivers down at the border. This particular issue is causing shortages right across the supply chain, and has only really started to play out since many of the temp workers unable to work their normal jobs during lockdown, have now returned to work, leaving the country in a bit of a workforce deficit in this area. 

There’s lots going on, lots to discuss and updates will follow. In the meantime, we will be focusing on getting what food we have out to the most marginalised, and shifting all the stock we do have already to make sure we can still pay our outgoings and keep our head above water. We will also be asking the government for some help, looking at sourcing low carbon food, and have launched this crowdfunding page to help mitigate the impacts ahead. 

 We want to also take this time to wish our friends at Fareshare the very best in finding a suitable replacement location for their work, and drivers willing to navigate the lorries full of food so we can all continue to ensure it doesn’t all rot on a landfill site.

Until then, we are asking for some help. If you’re in a position to help us weather this storm, any contribution would help. We have large outgoings and nothing coming in, and as we aren’t a huge project, we rely on small funding pots to keep going. Hopefully you’re in a position to top up our teapot, so we can return and hit the ground running with our ongoing work in the community; reducing food waste and hunger in Suffolk.

Thanks to everyone already supporting us. We need it now more than ever.