257 - Donation to Sheffield Food Chain to explain cooking and food storage space - June 2026

With this donation we have helped Sheffield Food Chain, a wholly volunteer-run small charity, which offers a lifeline to people in communities primarily across south-east Sheffield experiencing food poverty amidst the cost-of-living crisis. Food Chain was founded in the summer of 2023 to fill a gap in support left when another community food project closed down. It became a charity in its own right in November 2023 and is now run by seven trustees and over 30 committed volunteers. Their motto is ‘cook, pedal, serve’ and they make nutritious meals using fresh food that would otherwise go to waste, donated by local wholefood sellers. Every meal is prepared from scratch by volunteers at weekly batch cooking sessions, then packaged and frozen ready to be delivered by volunteer cyclists. They deliver 5-10 frozen meals to each client’s doorstep every week, around 100 meals in total, supporting around 60 local people. To find out more, please do have a look at their website: https://sheffieldfoodchain.org/. The people and families they deliver to are referred by a diverse range of local charities and community organisations who work with people struggling to access, afford, and cook nutritious food, many of whom find it difficult to use other services because of caring responsibilities or disability. They regularly deliver to households across Sheffield, primarily serving communities around the south-east including Sharrow, Broomhall, Lowfield, Gleadless and Arbourthorne. They currently have a waiting list of c.12 households and have been gradually expanding to accommodate more deliveries; to continue this they need to ensure they can cover the cost of rent, staple items, and food containers. Our £500 donation will allow them to expand their impact by upgrading their cooking and food storage space. With our donation they have purchased brand-new professional food industry-standard storage and shelving units, enabling a full revamp of their office and food storage space. This improves the organisation of all their key staple ingredients and other tools and equipment necessary for their operation, including oils, grains and rice, spices and tinned beans, representing a big boost to the efficiency of their entire operation. We did not know about this organisation before one of our members nominated them, and are pleased to be able to support them in their fabulous work. The photos attached show their volunteer and cooking operation and the new shelving and office revamp that our donation has enabled.