All you need to know about the Too Good To Go x FareShare partnership

Often, users ask us if there’s an option to ‘pay forward’ a Magic Bag; to buy one and gift it to someone in need. It’s a wonderful sentiment, but unfortunately there’s no easy and scalable way to do this - and often, the types of food sold through Too Good To Go aren’t the types of food required by those in need - or the community organisations set up to help them.

Instead, we’ve set up a donation portal, where users can donate £2, £4, or £6 to an organisation called FareShare. 100% of the funds donated will, of course, go directly to FareShare.

So, what’s FareShare all about, and how does that money get used? We sat down with Kris Gibbon-Walsh, Director or Network and Operation at FareShare UK to gather the essential details.

Tell us in 30 seconds - what does FareShare do?

FareShare is the UK’s biggest charity fighting hunger and food waste. We divert surplus food, which would otherwise go to waste, to our network of 11,000 frontline charities and community groups nationwide. These groups, which include school breakfast clubs, community centres, homeless shelters and food banks, feed people who are at risk of going hungry.

All in all, we provide the equivalent of 2 million meals a week, with two-thirds of the recipients being children and families.

We know that surplus food distribution isn't a silver bullet answer to food poverty. But we also know that whilst 8 million people in the UK go hungry every year, we throw away the equivalent of 1.3 billion meals’ worth of food before it gets to homes or schools. FareShare works to try and redress that balance.

What types of food are useful for FareShare, and the charities you service?

We redistribute food from growers, retailers and manufacturers who are unable to sell their food. There are all sorts of reasons this might happen: manufacturing errors, forecasting problems, foreign labelling, superficial damage to a product, or lapsed best before dates are just a few examples.

There are some types of food we can’t accept - these include alcohol, food past its use-by date, or food that’s already been cooked or prepared.

Do you accept one-off food donations from individuals?

Our regional centres are set up to redistribute large quantities of food from businesses. The whole system adheres to rigorous food safety and traceability guidelines, and because of that, donations from individuals can’t be accepted

How does FareShare use the money donated by Too Good To Go users?

Donations from the likes of the Too Good To Go community are vital in helping us continue our work throughout the year. They help fund every aspect of our organisation, from the regional centres where food is organised and distributed, to the trucks which deliver the food to communities safely.

All of these components are vital to ensuring FareShare can continue to redistribute nutritious good-to-eat surplus food to people struggling to get enough to eat. We’re really grateful for the support of Too Good To Go, and all its customers who generously donate to FareShare via the app.

Read more about how FareShare works here.