Food Works
Can you help us find a warehouse?
We are being forced to move out of our Wybourn warehouse on May 22nd 2021 and urgently need an alternative location to continue providing accessible and sustainable food for Sheffield. Every week thousands of people in Sheffield eat better because of the food they access via Food Works.
Just before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we moved from our warehouse in Burngreave to a new base in Wybourn. Agreement was made with the landlord of the Wybourn property to repair the leaking roof, but work was delayed due to the pandemic. After lengthy discussions with the landlord to make good on their promises, they have now told us to leave the premises in just 7 weeks.
How we're feeding Sheffield
The past year has been extraordinary. Over the pandemic we have worked with so many people and organisations in the city to provide food to anyone who needed it in this difficult time and we haven’t stopped for one day. Our warehouse is the heart of our work in Sheffield. Our team of 300 volunteers have worked to redistribute almost 500 tonnes of food to anyone in Sheffield who needs it over the pandemic. Food Works have provided over 40,000 boxes of groceries via markets in Wybourn and Sharrow. Thousands of meals are cooked to be collected in 11 hubs and partner hubs across Sheffield. But to continue doing this, we are now going to need some help ourselves. We have a great team and partners, but without a distribution hub where we can store, organise and distribute all this food, none of that will matter.
What you can do
Ideally we would find a fantastic new forever home to move to immediately, but the time for that is very short. So we also need to consider more temporary solutions. The most important thing is that we can continue to prevent food going to waste, and keep people fed. We’re looking for 5000 sqft property to run our operation. This means we’d need storage and distribution space with suitable loading and unloading for vans and lorries. In addition we would like our space to be suitable to have some office space and a trading counter to host our market.”
The food that Food Works works with is made available with the help of 300 volunteers, and accessed by hundreds of people from across the region every week, so location and accessibility are important. Good access via public transportation and the ability to park nearby would really help.
The exact nature of this space isn’t that important. It might be another warehouse, but Food Works could also make very good use of suitable retail or hospitality spaces. In fact, an onsite kitchen could be an amazing opportunity to upcycle a lot more of the challenging food we get in every day.
If you are aware of any suitable properties that are (going) vacant? Or if you are, or know anyone who is, at home with commercial property and could help find a suitable space? If you do, please get in touch with rene@thefoodworks.org
You can also access a press release on this topic.