Our annual report
It’s been a little longer coming than usual, but our annual report for July 2022 to June 2023 is now available.
Read or download the full report above (including the financial review), or read on for the highlights.
Progress Review
This year feels like it has been ‘business as usual’, only more so! Demand for all our services has increased, and all our projects have seen growth. Whilst it is good to be supporting more people, the increase in need is challenging.
The work of supporting foodbanks and pantries with food supplies through the Household Support Fund continued to occupy our warehouse team to capacity, alongside our intercepted and donated food service. With supplies of surplus food dramatically reduced, food projects have increasingly relied on the provision of the Household Support Fund to meet increasing demand. With the funding extended again for a final year (to March 2024), it will have been four years since we stepped in on a temporary basis at the beginning of the pandemic and we have been beginning to think about and plan for what will happen when this provision is no longer available, given that the need continues to increase.
We believe that the best solution to people not being able to afford food is to increase their incomes (through fair pay and benefits based on the actual cost of living), but until that is achieved then emergency food supplies will still be needed.
We were really pleased to be able to reopen our winter shelter this year, after two years where we were unable to operate due to COVID restrictions. We were grateful to be offered the use of an empty vicarage for three months, which supplemented our capacity and flexibility, and we again worked closely with the Housing Outreach Partnership (HOP) team to support guests off the streets and into longer-term accommodation. Whilst there seems to be a move away from communal shelter provision towards accommodation with individual rooms, most churches are not able to offer this and so we believe that our Winter Shelter continues to offer invaluable bed space across the coldest months of the winter which wouldn’t be replaced if the shelter did not run. We also continue to work with other organisations in the homeless sector to explore ways to strengthen homelessness provision in Bradford, including through our first homelessness conference.
We continued to grow our FoodSavers network across Bradford, as well as into neighbouring Credit Unions and areas, with Calderdale launching at the end of the year and Leeds preparing to launch. Interest continues to come in from further afield, and we are developing the procedures and technology to support growth nationally. We are very excited to have been awarded three years of funding from Comic Relief to support our FoodSavers Network partners, as well as launching our new Darley Street Cookery School, and we are looking forward to developing the relationship with Comic Relief. We continue to weave our theory of behaviour change, choice, dignity, empowerment and financial inclusion throughout all of our work.
Our cooking education programme has been supplemented this year by a market voucher scheme, supporting families to shop locally and healthily, as well as by the introduction of Kitty’s Kits, easy-to-make bread kits that enable anybody to produce delicious bread.
Our provision of starter packs to people moving from homelessness into tenancies, and supply of duvets and food to people through the Warm Homes Healthy People partnership, both had their busiest years ever. We were also very pleased to commit to being a Key Partner of Acts 435, through which we supported 117 people with over £18,000 of essential white goods, furniture and other items.
In all our work sustainability is a key concern. Handing out increasing amounts of ‘free’ food is not a sustainable model (although a safety net of a certain amount of emergency support will always be needed) and our FoodSavers network attempts to move on from handouts to allowing people to have greater choice and dignity through paying for their food (albeit at a subsidised rate), as well as building up savings to empower themselves and to increase financial inclusion. Similarly our cooking education work aims to educate and train people so that they can eat well on any budget.
With some big changes on the horizon, including our new market development and the ending of our work redistributing purchased food, the next year will again be one of change and development and we look forward to continuing to use our strengths to meet the needs around us.
Volunteers
Volunteers are crucial to our work and we would not be able to achieve the things we do without them.
At the Storehouse, four regular volunteers gave over 1,000 hours of time, weighing and sorting food donations and purchase, moving food around the warehouse, preparing deliveries and keeping the warehouse running.
At our Shaw House venue, our five regular volunteers gave over 1,200 hours helping to look after customers of our social supermarket, as well as maintaining and improving the building.
Several young people again volunteered at our cooking classes, and we also hosted corporate volunteering groups, together contributing 100 hours of time helping to prepare and run cooking classes. Another team of volunteers, primarily from Bradford Bronte Rotary Club, gave 140 hours to put together recipe bags.
Each Winter Shelter venue recruits their own volunteers, and a single night takes around 65 hours of volunteer time. We operated at host churches for 77 nights this year equating to just over 5,000 hours of volunteering.
On top of this we welcomed groups from Virgin Media, Marks and Spencer Logistics, Company Shop and the Bradford G10 Rotary clubs who helped us out for projects or days of volunteering.
Volunteers are also crucial to the operation of each FoodSavers outlet, which operate autonomously.
We’re grateful to each and every person who has helped us this year.
Welfare
Demand for our welfare support services increased again on last year, which was already our busiest year ever.
Starter Packs
Our starter packs are provided to people moving from the streets into tenancies, and contain essentials such as bedding, crockery, cutlery, cooking equipment and utensils and a kettle. This year we provided 209 starter packs (from 269 referrals), another significant increase on previous years (170 last year and 135 the year before).
Warm Homes Healthy People (WHHP)
WHHP is a partnership of organisations in Bradford helping people who are homeless, or vulnerably or poorly housed, to keep warm through information, emergency support and energy efficiency measures. This year we supported 506 people and their families (from 715 referrals) with 1,400 duvets and food for 1,113 people. This was over four times more families than last year (and ten times the previous year), with even bigger increases in the amount of food and duvets distributed. This likely reflects an increased need for warmth due to higher heating bills, as well as the cost of living meaning more people are struggling.
Essentials
We work with a small number of referral partners to provide food and clothing essentials to newly-arrived refugees and asylum seekers, and other clients in need. This year we provided clothing or footwear for 143 people, and food parcels for 91, helping 194 individuals in total – a slight decrease on last year, which may reflect a more stringent checking of duplicate referrals.
Acts 435
Acts 435 connects people with specific needs to donors who can support them through a crowd-funding site. We post requests for items such as fridges, washing machines, microwaves, clothing, curtains and carpets, and donors are then able to donate towards each item until the need is met. This year generous donors helped us to support 117 individuals (from 190 referrals) to purchase over £18,000 of items that they wouldn’t otherwise have been able to afford, helping them in establishing tenancies, escaping crisis or building new lives following trauma.
We’re really grateful to be a key partner of Acts 435, allowing us to directly support so many individuals who have nowhere else to turn for support.
Winter Shelter
We were able to reopen our winter shelter this year, after two years where COVID prevented it running. A slightly-reduced roster of eleven host churches were on board to offer shelter from December to March.
We received 151 referrals, hosting 67 guests in our shelters in churches, plus another 27 at St Mary’s Vicarage, Laisterdyke, the use of which we were generously gifted by the Diocese of Leeds for three months. This was the most referrals we’d received in the history of the shelter.
This year we saw more British people who were homeless and seeking shelter, as well as more couples and more women. Without the use of the vicarage we would have struggled to accommodate the women and couples, as it provided us with individual rooms which most churches aren’t able to offer. This was a particular blessing to a homeless couple expecting a baby, who we were able to accommodate until they moved to more permanent accommodation.
We worked closely with the Housing Outreach Partnership (HOP) team throughout the shelter both to seek out people on the streets who needed a roof over their heads, and to move guests on to more permanent accommodation. We were delighted that due to the hard work of our team and partners, all but two guests found accommodation before the end of the shelter in March. We were also pleased to offer one hardworking guest an employed post.
Alongside providing shelter and helping guests to secure permanent accommodation, we worked with Phil from Kuta to run eight sessions with some of our guests at the vicarage to build self-esteem and confidence. Activities including cooking sausages on sticks in the woods gave opportunities to talk about challenges, feelings and building better lives.
Building on the good relationships we have built with the HOP team, in May we were able to welcome them into the newly-refurbished top floor of our Shaw House venue, giving them a city centre office base from which to operate – thanks to Night Shelter Transformation Funding from the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC)
In January we ran a homelessness conference, bringing together statutory and community organisations involved in homelessness provision across Bradford. There was a very positive open discussion about the challenges faced since the pandemic, what was working well, how to build resilience in the sector, gaps and blockers to provision, and opportunities to work more closely together. The conference came up with three small achievable outcomes (a shared referral pathway, a directory of services and contact details, and quarterly meetings) and three larger goals to aim for (increased safe provision for vulnerable females, a fuller homeless network with project manager, and lobbying to reopen face-to-face contact with the Council’s Housing Options team at Britannia House). Our thanks go to Mark Kitson, Liam Jagger and April Joy Serrant for supporting the conference, and to Soraya and Julie for the wonderful lunch.
Food
Our work supporting foodbanks and pantries with purchased food continued, as the funding from Bradford Council, through the Government’s Household Support Fund, was extended again. Demand has increased significantly and we purchased and delivered more this year than the previous two years combined, adding 191 tonnes of food, for a total of 440 tonnes since March 2020. This food is free to foodbanks and projects, and is calculated to have contributed to over 1.5 million meals.
We also continued to support our regular food partners with donated and intercepted food, providing 45 tonnes to community groups, faith groups, asylum and refugee projects, homeless provision, schools and other organisations. This has again nearly halved since the previous year, reflecting a continued squeeze on the availability of surplus food and increased competition for that supply, as discussed in more detail in last year’s report. There are some signs that the decrease in availability may have slowed, or even begin to increase slightly, but with the supply of intercepted food 75% down in just two years, resourcing our partners adequately continues to be a concern.
FoodSavers Network
Our FoodSavers Network aims to reduce dependency on foodbanks and free food, by combining sustainable low-cost food markets with easy access to a Credit Union, as part of the wider food support ecosystem. Each outlet offers high quality fresh and store cupboard food, plus toiletries and household products, for a low weekly membership fee (typically £6), at locations across Bradford. Much of the food is unwanted or surplus, intercepted from being wasted. Membership (initially by referral) also gives the opportunity to attend cookery classes, save in a recognised Credit Union scheme at no extra cost, and enjoy other benefits.
By the end of June 2023 we had 17 outlets open across the Bradford District, with an average of 156 savers each month. During the year members saved £9,854 into their Credit Union accounts for a rainy day, a Christmas present, a little treat or a missing essential. For some this was the first time they had ever had any savings.
As well as continuing to roll out outlets across Bradford, we partnered with Calderdale Credit Union to open the first of two pantries in Calderdale in May. Following a successful launch in Brighouse, 32 customers signed up to the Credit Union by the end of June, collecting 298 bags of shopping and saving £288 between them in the first few weeks.
We have also partnered with Leeds Credit Union, with our first Leeds outlet due to launch in Armley in August, and are in conversations with other Credit Unions further afield.
We are still in conversations with a developer about the software platform to support this rollout, but with progress slow we are also exploring other options.
Our existing outlets are seeing an increase in footfall, partly due to increased awareness but also because of increased need. At the same time we’ve seen a decrease in donated or intercepted food, whilst purchased food has significantly increased in price. Outlets are having to balance remaining affordable for customers with ensuring they are sustainable. Some have increased their membership fee, although this is never popular, and others have tightened restrictions slightly on the number of items per shop, number of times a customer may shop per week or opening times.
We’re proudly the first Leeds group to join the FoodSavers Network, and it has made us reflect on good collaborators and mentors. FoodSavers wants people to have dignity and choice. The network gives you a model to work with, with plenty of room to adapt it to the needs of your community.
The team at YUM, our first Leeds pantry opening soon
It’s important to hold doors open to people, but it’s so much better if you have someone walking through it with you.
Cooking
This year we worked with 21 schools, statutory services, charities and community groups to deliver 200 sessions inspiring and enthusing people about cooking healthy and nutritious meals for themselves, teaching new skills and recipes and getting kids and adults excited about cooking and eating healthily. We’ve also put on 90 public classes (50 for adults – mostly our Jamie’s Ministry of Food 8-week course – and 40 kids’ holiday cooking sessions).
Our sessions have included kids’ cooking classes, family cooking sessions, adult cooking workshops, skills sessions, and food safety courses. We’ve worked with children from six years old to adults of all ages. Around 375 people have prepared and cooked over 2,000 great-tasting meals, including corporate teams, carers, kids with special educational needs and disabilities, FoodSavers members, trainee teachers, parents, students and the public.
Some of our kids’ holiday cooking classes were again supported by the Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, funded by Bradford Council and the Department for Education. We had some memorable moments this year, and successfully introduced lots of healthy new foods to people. Salmon was a particular hit in the summer, with participants commenting, “I didn’t know healthy food could taste this good”, “I didn’t like salmon at first but I tried it and I love it”, and “I said I didn’t like salmon but I was so surprised at all the lovely flavours from the tikka salmon! I will definitely have this again!”
We always get a great response from people on our eight-week course discovering new recipes and learning new skills in the kitchen, with many saying they have made the recipes again at home. One lady shared that it has helped improve her health, saying it,
helped me lose weight and eat well. So glad I got introduced to your classes.
We continued to work closely with the MyLivingWell project on their ‘Swap Well to Eat Well’ campaign, encouraging people to make healthy food swaps. Our ‘fakeaway’ recipe bags contained all the ingredients needed for a delicious takeaway for four, as well as instructions on how to make it, enabling people to swap their takeaways for a healthier and cheaper (but no less tasty) alternative. The 2,800 parcels were distributed for free at our FoodSavers pantries, at the Broadway, Kirkgate and Airedale Shopping Centres, and at the Shipley Underground Market. An amazing team of volunteers carried, lifted, shifted and packed 155 boxes of peppers, 648 kg of onions, 650 boxes of tins and jars, 4,200 packets of spices and 233 packets of wraps, as well as breaking down 24kg of garlic bulbs and bagging up 6 large boxes of coriander! We filmed several supporting videos demonstrating how to make the recipes which are available on the Living Well website. Then in April we popped up at the new Taste:BD festival in City Park with a kids’ masterclass in healthy packed lunches, distributing samples and goody bags, plus another 1,000 fakeaway bags.
We were very excited this year to team up with Bradford Markets to deliver a voucher scheme, giving away nearly £2,000 of vouchers to cookery course attendees and FoodSavers members. The vouchers, which could be spent on any fresh produce from the market stalls at the Oastler Shopping Centre, have enabled many young people and their families to buy fresh ingredients that they can use to replicate the dishes they have learnt with us. The vouchers have been a massive success both with the traders and our customers. Many families have told us that they were inspired to go buy and try new ingredients that they have not tried before. We have seen many excited faces when they have come back and told us what they had bought. One young person was thrilled when he managed to purchase a fresh crab! It has been a great way to showcase the fresh produce on our doorstep and give people the confidence to choose and taste foods that will help them and their families make healthier food choices in the future.
We also get excited about bread this year, after discovering Kitty’s Kits, set up by a young lady called Kitty who is on a mission to ‘breaducate’ the nation. These kits contain everything to make great-tasting bread in one bag: a loaf, baguette, pizza base, or any other bread product you fancy. Kitty’s mission is to distribute 10,000 free bread kits to community groups, schools, food banks, prisons and social enterprises to enable people to make their own bread. We ordered 1,000 kits which we’re giving to FoodSavers outlets, schools and many of the other groups we work with. The feedback so far has been amazing: “these bread kits are so easy”, “love the taste”, “we made date and walnut bread, and it was fab”, “we made flat bread with ours”, “I made sundried tomato and rosemary focaccia and it was lovely”.
Other highlights
Strategic away day
In March the whole team spent a day in the Dales thinking, learning and planning. We spent some time sharing updates on the different areas of work we are currently involved in, before moving on to think about future developments and how we can best use our resources to effect lasting change.
We were joined by April-Joy from AJS Training to learn about how to build resilience into our lives.
Many thanks to Jane Vincent at Fortem People who hosted us at their beautiful headquarters near Skipton.
Bradford SOUP
This year took us to our 28th highly successful SOUP event, in partnership with Bradford Bronte Rotary Club and the Bradford G10 Rotary clubs.
Bradford Community SOUP aims to change our local communities for the better by bringing together members of those communities to pitch their ideas for improving our area.
Winning projects this year have supported families with young children, single mothers, homeless people, disabled athletes, those who have lost a baby, and girls and young women with autism. We’ve also supported community centres, and art exhibition and a literature festival.
Full details at bradfordsoup.org.uk.
Cinnamon Toast!
With a huge thank you to the all of the team at the Cinnamon Network, we completed our two years of the Cinnamon incubator programme: it was over way too quickly.
The incubator programme supports brilliant start-up social projects which are offered training and guidance to help replicate their good idea.
Over 24 months we received amazing training and mentorship for our FoodSavers project.
Through exceptional leadership and working with other amazing projects we really did develop a strong critical friendship, and became committed cheerleaders of some wonderful and creative social action projects.
Looking Ahead
The coming year will see significant developments across our work. We will continue to roll out the FoodSavers Network with full launches in Calderdale and Leeds, and new outlets in Bradford. We will be taking on additional staff to support this, and we need to resolve the software platform to support the expansion. Once the platform is in place we will also take forward conversations with Credit Unions and food networks further afield about taking on the FoodSavers model. We will focus on formalising agreements, policies and procedures to ensure a stable base for the network to rest on, and the best possible experience for new outlets as they come on board. We also need to work across the network to support partner outlets in building resilience in their food sourcing to ensure that they can meet demand.
Our Cooking Hub will continue to work with schools and community organisations across Bradford to deliver cooking and healthy eating education. We are in conversations to expand our very successful voucher scheme across other markets in Bradford, and we will continue to roll out Kitty’s Kits through schools, pantries and other groups.
The biggest development on the Cooking side is that we are working with Bradford Council to take on an anchor unit at the new Darley Street Market. This will provide a much more visible and accessible home for our cooking school. We have secured funding towards this are in the process of agreeing the details of our offering there with the market team.
We are planning our first ‘Food for Health not Wealth’ conference to bring together organisations involved in food provision across Bradford to think strategically about how we work together to support those who need emergency food of any kind, particularly considering the ending of Council funding to purchase food next March. We will continue to contribute to the Council’s food poverty and good food strategies and are proud that FoodSavers is included in both.
We will also continue to review what our food provision service will look like going forward without the significant work of distributing Council-funded food, which will involve changes to our warehouse operations, and balancing the need and demand for our services with what it is we can do well with the resources available to us.
We will continue to strengthen partnerships with the Housing Outreach Partnership (HOP) team, particularly around our Winter Shelter. We will look to follow up on some of the outcomes from the homelessness conference, including seeking to develop a homeless intranet or resource site.
To support all of that activity, we need to strengthen our administrative and finance capacity, and our management structures. We also need to invest in our technology to facilitate working effectively across multiple sites.
On the governance side, we plan to increase the frequency of trustee meetings to better respond to fast-changing events, as well as aiming to recruit new Trustees to provide additional skills and resilience. We have also begun a programme of documenting and strengthening our policies and procedures to ensure that everything we do is built on strong foundations.
For the financial review, read or download the PDF of the full annual report above.
