Funding For Food

Breyer Foundation has donated £4k to Chelmsford’s only mobile, affordable food charity, enabling more people living with food insecurity to have greater dignity and access to the nourishment they need. The St Francis Pop Up Food Store also provides free hot drinks to visitors along with an opportunity to connect with other members and volunteers, helping to reduce the social isolation that is common among those living with poverty.

The project, which was initially borne out of a need identified by Chelmsford Food Alliance, currently has 144 members across two locations accessing £20-£30 worth of groceries for just £5. However, St Francis is fast-outgrowing capacity with requests for them to service additional locations. What’s more, the ‘social food store’ is currently only able to offer ambient food due to restrictions with storage. So, the team is actively looking for new larger premises, which will provide space both for the van and a wider food stock to live together along with power for fridges and freezers. Breyer Foundation’s donation will be used to purchase ‘top up’ stock and to help fund premises for this expansion.

Ruth Pierce, Manager of the Pop-Up Food Store, said:

“Our tagline is to offer ‘a helping hand with your weekly shop’ because we’re passionate about supporting our local community by taking the sting out of the weekly shop. Before starting up the charity, we worked with Essex County Council to determine the locations that most needed this service. We discovered that people living in more rural areas spend more money on transport in order to access food, which has a reasonable impact on already tight budgets. It became clear that there was a need for a mobile pop-up store that can travel close to where people live, rather than being restricted to one central location.

“We’re keen to make this service available to more people and the Breyer Foundation funds will help with this, as well as supporting our plans to offer chilled foods through sourcing larger, better-serviced premises in which to store our van and food stock.”