Food4Heroes, which was founded by Amanda Guest and John Brownhill, pools together local catering companies and restaurants to deliver high quality, nutritious free meals to hospitals. Based in Yorkshire, it is currently delivering around 28,000 meals per week across the UK with the aim of making a hot meal for every single NHS worker during the Coronavirus pandemic
To date (5 May) the charity has raised £259,000, with 28,421 meals due to be delivered this week alone.
Arla Pro, the foodservice division of the UK’s largest farmer-owned dairy co-operative Arla Foods, is among the suppliers that has pledged its support to campaign with a contribution of dairy products including milk, cheese and butter.
“The challenges of coronavirus are hitting the dairy industry hard with a surplus of milk now being produced on farms across the country,” says Jonathan Dixon, vice president for Arla Pro UK.
“To ensure Arla milk isn’t wasted, where there are temporarily less foodservice outlets to sell dairy products into, we are redistributing them to where they are needed most; to those being shielded, those on the front line at our hospitals, and the children who are in need of nutritious products to help stay healthy at this time.”
Food4Heroes covers the cost of every meal prepared, saying that it ensures it is of excellent quality. “Our NHS Heroes deserve nothing less. Please support us today to make sure we can continue to offer this service for as long as this crisis lasts,” say Food4Heroes founders Amanda Guest and John Brownhill.
“We are so very grateful for the generous donations of milk, cheese and butter from Arla Foods, which means we can continue to provide daily meals to the frontline NHS Staff in Yorkshire Hospitals. Thanks to the generosity of Arla and other local providers we are now able to serve 19 Hospitals nationally, and over 27,000 meals to NHS Heroes every week.”
Arla has already committed over 35% of its milk produced at its site in Settle, North Yorkshire, to the Government’s care packages for those needing to be shielded and has donated milk, cheese, yoghurt and butter to FareShare, which redistributes food to charities and community groups helping the most vulnerable at this time.
Working with Magic Breakfast, Arla will also provide free milk to deliver 4.8 million breakfast bowls for vulnerable children.
As part of its campaign, Food4Heroes is also promoting its #StepUp4OurNHS challenge, calling on people to climb one of the UK’s most iconic landmarks from their home. Participants choose one of its shortlisted landmarks, climb the equivalent number of steps in their home and then donate £4 to Food4Heroes.
Catering and restaurant businesses can sign up to volunteer their services to Food4Heroes via its website