Cost of living crisis: Lancaster business helps hundreds of hard-up families every week

By providing storage space, Kidds Transport has helped food distribution charity Eggcup support an additional 550 families each week in the past year.

Phil Tarney, Operations Manager at Eggcup, said the support it has received from Kidds has been massive:

"Eggcup works with food businesses to stop surplus food from going to waste and get it to people instead,” he said.

"Our low-cost, weekly food scheme helps our members to save money on food making life more affordable for those in our community who are finding it difficult.

"The support we've received from Kidds Transport has been massive and fantastic. The space that we have at Kidds' warehouse has enabled us to get more food in on a more regular basis and also Kidds have helped us with transport of that food as well, dropping it off to various Eggcup sites.”

As a result, the charity has gone from last year serving 250 members per week to this year, now, up to 800 households per week.”

"We wouldn't have been able to do it without the help of Kidds," said Phil.

The use of foodbanks and similar emergency food provision has grown substantially across the UK in the last decade, a trend that’s likely to accelerate as a result of the cost of living crisis and food price inflation that’s making it more expensive for families to put food on the table.

According to research collated by the Lancaster District Food Justice Partnership, between 20 and 30 per cent of households in the urban areas of Lancaster and Morecambe are at risk of food poverty.

An analysis of food provision and accessibility conducted in Lancaster district identified 28 locations as ‘food deserts’. These are areas where residents are more likely to face economic and or physical constraints when it comes to accessing food, particularly healthy foods.

Simon Park, managing director at Kidds Transport, said the firm offered to help Eggcup after learning about the levels of food insecurity and food poverty in the area.

“When we saw the need, we wanted to do our bit to help,” he said.

"As a business employing nearly 50 local people, 99 per cent of whom have LA postcodes, it’s always been important to us to support our community.

“We have warehousing and logistics that cover the whole of the UK and by making some space available we’ve been able to help Eggcup receive and securely store more surplus food ready to go out to other charities and families.

“It’s amazing to think that they’ve been able to serve over three times as many households as a result of the space and support we’ve provided to them in the last year.

“As a logistics company, I’d never imagined we could help so directly. It’s been a real eye opener and I hope that other businesses will be inspired to partner with local charities like this too.

"My message would be to have a look out there, see where the need is, find out which charities are serving that need and explore how you can work alongside them.”