A little story about re-plenish

Once upon a time...all the unwanted food from local supermarkets was put into a big hole in the ground; It was food that was perfectly edible – what a waste. At the same time, all around Oxford there were lots of community projects trying to help disadvantaged local people by providing healthy meals. These projects had to find large amounts of money to buy the food to provide nutritious and delicious meals. It was very difficult and it made the people very sad. But then, as luck would have it, a group of local people put their heads together and came up with re-plenish, a food bank which would collect the unwanted and unsold food and give it to the community projects…and they all lived happily ever after!

Well, there was a bit more to it than that, but essentially that is how re-plenish came to be started.

In and around the city of Oxford there is a large number of community food projects, ranging from drop in centres for the homeless, to community cafes. Food banks provide an ideal way of aiding these projects by saving them money on their food budgets, increasing the numbers of people that they can help and improving the services they offer. It is a sad fact that, despite Oxford’s affluent appearance, food poverty is very real. People who experience food poverty are at a very real risk of having malnutrition, vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Often, people at risk will only have access to highly processed foods, which are high in salt, fat and sugar and so will subsequently lead on to other health problems.

A food bank is essentially a way of redistributing surplus and waste foods to where it can be used to help people. It is also a welcome way for food companies to address environmental concerns, such as the amount of produce that would go to landfill sites.