Yorkshire County Cricket Club’s foundation fights food waste and poverty

The Yorkshire Cricket Foundation (YCF) has partnered with FareShare, a charity fighting hunger and food waste.

YCF runs the Lord’s Taverners project Wicketz across Yorkshire. Wicketz Yorkshire, which aims to get children off the streets and into sport, also runs workshops on diet and nutrition among other valuable life skills.

Wicketz and FareShare will be delivering ‘Cook and Eat’ sessions in deprived areas across the region. Pete Barringer, development officer at FareShare, said: “FareShare Yorkshire is delighted to be supporting the YCF initiative with food for this project. As a food redistribution charity we have two goals: to support vulnerable people with good food that has become surplus and thereby prevent it being wasted.

“To do this, we work with food industry partners, taking good quality in-date food and distributing it to vital frontline organisations that support vulnerable people.

“We work in full compliance of food industry standards and ensure that all the food we send out is fully tracible and kept safely. Historically the food would have been classed as waste and sent to landfill or other waste processes, but due to our unique partnerships with suppliers, we can take this food and distribute it to those who are in most need.

“In Yorkshire, we are looking to redistribute 1,000 tonnes of surplus food in 2019, so vital projects and services can produce over 2 million meals across the Yorkshire region.”

The first ‘Cook and Eat’ session began at the Karmand Centre in Bradford on January 18.

Lubna Manzoor, a parent of a Wicketz participant, said: “All the children enjoyed the fantastic surprise of having food and snacks from different organisations and I very much appreciate all the food that was donated from the different stores.

“I feel like having these foods and snacks given to youngsters will dramatically increase healthy eating for young children.”

To find out more about Wicketz or how you can support the YCF, visit www.yorkshirecricketfoundation.com.