The charity FareShare, which distributes food to over 42,000 people across Yorkshire, has received an early Christmas present from the London North Eastern Railway (LNER).

A new van, which has been funded by the LNER’S Customer and Community Investment Fund, has ensured that additional surplus food can be distributed to food banks and organisations such as homeless shelters, school breakfast clubs and community cafes.

The new van has been added to FareShare’s existing fleet of vehicles in Leeds.

The charity has provided a service to the most desperate in the UK since 1994.

Now, 30 years on, they work with over 850 organisations to tackle food waste, which is donated to help those who have fallen on tough times.

Fresh, chilled, frozen, and ambient food distributed by FareShare not only helps those who need a meal but also offers food hygiene preparation training through its FullCrumb Kitchen scheme.

This scheme is used to help those who are self-sufficient cooks or to train them to become professional chiefs or members of food preparation staff in the catering industry. This gives them skills and attributes that can lead to employment.

The is also a Full Crumb Kitchen YouTube channel, which offers recipes and cooking tips that make the most of surplus food, there are also plans in the pipeline to release a cookbook featuring many of the recipes which is due to be released in early 2025.

Throughout 2024, FareShare has enabled 5 million meals to be distributed to the people of Bradford, Harrogate, Keighley, Kirklees, Ryedale and York, all of which stemmed from 2,000 tonnes of food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

The new van funded by LNER, will ensure FareShare can grow its operations around Selby by affording the charity the opportunity to run an additional eight deliveries per day to their existing schedule.

“FareShare Yorkshire is a remarkable charity which makes a profound difference in people’s lives. The volume of food they receive and manage at their distribution centre is astonishing. LNER is incredibly proud to support them in the delivery of their vital service and we hope that the new van enables them to provide more meals and feed more people.

LNER Customer and Community Manager, Rachael Wilson

Applications for LNER funding reached an all time high earlier this year, though that hasn’t stopped the train operating company from helping many local projects along the routes of which they serve.