While the Company has a strong history of providing welfare support for those working within the hospitality industry, such as through an annual grant to the Drinks Trust, an ever-more growing area of need is around food poverty. 

Examples of initiatives working in this important area include the food rescue charity City Harvest, which the Company has supported for the last three years, and more recently Parent Club which brings isolated families together to prepare healthy, low-cost food with additional early years activities for children and parents.

City Harvest is a food rescue charity addressing food waste and food poverty. They deliver free food to over 375 charities, such as food banks, schools, hostels, soup kitchens, community centres, faith groups, and refuges. High inflation is having major consequences in London, in particular, where more than 21% of adults are already facing food insecurity and 800,000 children live in poverty. Even before the cost of living crisis, every month Londoners were missing an estimated 10.2 million meals.

What we fund

Over three years as a favoured charity, through its donations the Company supported City Harvest to deliver free surplus food across London to families making the desperate decision between heating or eating. The jointly branded City Harvest/Vintners’ Company van delivered 2,598,342 meals to community partners throughout London, provided food valued at £4 million, allowing organisations to allocate these funds to other essential services and diverted 2,706 tonnes of greenhouse gases from landfill.

Our partnership with City Harvest also extended to include a Volunteer Day for Vintners to spend a day with the team at their fun and busy warehouse in Acton, West London helping to pack and deliver food to be distributed to those in need across London.

Parent Club delivers the Kitchen Club programme, which brings socially-isolated families together to prepare healthy, low-cost food with additional early years activities for children and parents. Their model is designed to address hardship through providing healthy food, developing skills and improving resilience. Over 3,000 families (4,000 children) live in temporary accommodation in Hackney, many of whom lack the knowledge, confidence and skills to meet government guidelines for healthy eating.

What we fund

Last year the Vintners’ Foundation donated to the Kitchen Club Programme, allowing Parent Club to deliver 37 Kitchen Club sessions over 12 months at the St Peter De Beauvoir Community Centre in Hackney. Over 12 months they worked with 98 unique beneficiaries (48 adults and 50 children aged 0-5). In each session, parents, children and staff worked together to make a healthy, low-cost lunch. At the same time, a range of activities to support child development were organised for children and parents, like crafting, shared reading, or singing. When lunch was ready, everyone sat down to eat together, before helping to tidy up. At the end of each session there was a staff debrief where safeguarding issues, signposting requests and referrals to other services was discussed. Parent Club also works closely with a range of partner organisations who are able to provide additional support.