Food Bank Friday is here!

Black Friday is an American idea which was imported over here by a few retailers hoping to replicate the mad sales rush which was happening in the US on Black Friday. A few online retailers had been using the Black Friday name but it wasn’t until 2014 when it really hit the headlines. This year many retailers cut prices and heavily promoted sales on the Friday, this caused a mad frenzy with police forces called to shops across the country to deal with crowd control issues, traffic problems, threatening customers and even assaults, all just to get some money off a new TV.

We were horrified by the scenes from supermarkets and stores across the country so we decided we would do something different and instead raise awareness of a cause and do something more positive. For Black Friday 2015 we launched our alternative Food Bank Friday.

We wanted to raise awareness of the huge increase in demand at food banks across the country. So we thought the best way to do this was to give directly to the a food bank and get customers involved so they would know that their order has directly resulted in an item being donated to the Newcastle West End Food Bank. We chose this particular food bank because it is the busiest in the country and it just down the road from us. We would like to donate to all food banks but logistically this would be very difficult and would incur quite a lot of cost, so to maximise what we could give, we decided to focus on one food bank with the full donation going to the Newcastle West End Food Bank. Whilst the donations go to one location, the main aim of the campaign is a national one, to raise awareness of the ever increasing levels of poverty and the number of families that struggle to put decent food on the table for their children.

For Food Bank Friday (running from 25th November to midnight 2nd December) we will be offering customers a 20% discount and we will donate an item directly from our stock to the Newcastle West End Food Bank with every order we take over £30.

Have a look to find your local food bank if you feel inspired to help out or make a donation directly. Don’t forget as well as the item we donate with your order, you can make an extra cash donation in the checkout which will go to the Newcastle West End Food Bank, for these donations we use this money to purchase the same high quality food and essentials we sell and get them shipped directly to the food bank and also add an extra 20% on top of this.
Since we started launched Food Bank Friday in 2015 over 12,000 ethical household and grocery products have been donated to the foodbank, with over 4,200 items donated last year worth in excess of £7,000 – the most successful to date. We hope this year we will be able to give the most we ever have to the food bank!

Between 1 April 2018 and 31 March 2019, the Trussell Trust’s food bank network distributed 1.6 million three-day emergency food supplies to people in crisis, a 19% increase on the previous year. The most worrying aspect of this is that more than half a million of these went to children.
in 2019 between April and September there was a 23% increase in demand over the previous year, making it the busiest ever 6 months ever for the Trussel Trust’s network since they opened.

Sadly this increase is not just a one off, food bank usage has consistently increase every year, rising 75% in the last five years alone.

The Trussel Trust have recently released statistics covering the last 6 months which show an accelerating increase in demand at food banks so it’s more important than ever to do what you can to help.

If you’d like to know more about how you can help your local food bank, through either donating food and essentials, donating money, raising money, volunteering or getting your business involved please visit the Trussell Trust Website.