'We send 17,000 meals a week to foodbanks'

Neil Reid says the Big Food Project delivered 17,600 meals out of the warehouse last week

An emergency food charity that sends meals to foodbanks across Blackpool has said it could face closure without support to keep its services running.

The Big Food Project is a redistributor of surplus food from supermarkets and manufacturers to 125 foodbanks, schools, community kitchens, crisis services and families across Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre.

It said it urgently needed help to keep its three trucks on the road, its warehouse open and food reaching those who need it most through its 150 volunteers.

"Last week we put 17,600 meals out of the warehouse," founder Neil Reid said. "But we need people to volunteer, we need food, and also we need cold, hard cash."

'Hungry at Christmas'

The non-profit organisation started as Blackpool Food Bank in February 2012 "because there was a need in the town around our children's centres, and that need has just got bigger and bigger", he said.

"We're not asking for anything for us, this is about the people that we serve.

"We have just constantly tried to reach further and do more."

Mr Reid said that in the first year "we started off with 4,360 meals in a year which we thought was fabulous, this year that's about 900,000."

"We shift about 50 tonnes of food a month so we need a facility where we can move food in and move food out to get it to the people that are reliant on us," he added.

"We serve 125 charities, 90 of those on average access us every week to serve the people that they're serving, so it's a big operation."

He said demand went up "exponentially because of Christmas" and many thousands in Blackpool and the surrounding area would "go hungry" if it could not keep going.