Foodbank buying items from shops?

[girlfriend44]

I always thought that foodbanks were given out of date stock when I saw them collecting from shops and supermarkets.
I have now found out they buy items from certain retailers at a reduced price.
They put orders in. Where does the money come from to purchase?
Also they have vans, which cost money in petrol etc.
Anyone else think the same, never realised they were collecting stuff they had ordered in. I thought it was donated to them?÷

My sister works in a church that has a food bank. They also offer reduced/free meals for those in need. At Christmas we cooked and fed 85 people that otherwise wouldn’t have had a festive meal . She was inundated with people wanting to donate.a bag of carrots, 500 mince pies, a cheap beef joint for 4, a half a tub of cream etc. but the smoke truth is that in order to treat these service users with respect, you have to treat them equally and with a decent standard product. That can’t be done with 12 different varying quality joints of meat, 10 tires of potatoes and used by dates ranging from NO to 4 days out of date. The best way for us was to ask for volunteers so people could contribute time (peeling veg, plating up, arranging delivery routes, delivering) or for people to donate money so we could buy in a good standard of food that was all the same.

yes food banks take donations but they are also in reboot of various streams of funding to help run vans and purchase food, they are left bequests etc and supported by mayors charities, school collections etc. if they relied 100% on tinned/fresh donations then people would receive the most random and inedible variety of stuff ever. Like the autumn harvest in primary school, it was all 4yo tinned peaches, random dented Soup and corned beef missing the key opener. I always felt sorry for whoever it was being sent to .

On the few times I have visited the large community fridge - I don't go that often as its a 30 mile round trip, I go for other reasons. They have a fridge which contains things like cooked meats, some produce, such as mangetout. They have a small countertop freezer. From the few times I looked inside and from FB page photos, its usually Lidl's around the world frozen range. If Lidl (their store is a few mins walk) have a handful left of these ranges, they give these to the cf. Plus once there were some branded frozen pizzas which have been replaced by a shrunken size.

@Auburngal food banks and community fridges are different things though.

a community fridge and a foodbank are very different. we are lucky to have a community fridge near us. they put in short date stuff, either donated or given by supermarkets, and fruit and veg. we have a local gleaning group that collects the veg not considered up to standard to sell that drop it off there too. and anyone can help themselves. it's round the back of one of the local petrol stations.

a foodbank doesn't have the same facilities. most things will be dried, jarred or tinned. some are able to offer fresh meat or veg, or frozen goods, but most can't.

I donate cash as they can get food discounted. Our food bank gets 10 cans of soup for the price of one.

Some of you mat find this episode of the food program interesting it's about how they work and the people that use them.
I particularly like the idea of mega banks , were not only food but clothing , hygiene, bedding, cleaning, plates , cutlery and other things most of us take for granted are either handed out or available to by at a tiny fraction of the normal cost
There are lots of really good initiatives like cafes , meeting centers , and in general lots of people that are working really hard to make food waste available to all them that need it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002694z?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile

@SantaBakula thank you for the recommendation, very interesting.