McCain and FareShare - 1.3 million meal milestone!

As a global business, McCain has committed to a target of 200 million meal donations to food surplus redistribution organisations by 2025. To help achieve this, McCain has been a FareShare food partner since 2013. Read the case study below to find out more about this partnership and how it has resulted in over 1.3 million meals worth of surplus being donated.

Cross-functional team to help facilitate donations

During the early years of their partnership, McCain’s donations to FareShare were typically ad-hoc due to limited connections with the wider FareShare team and a lack of clear process. To overcome this, McCain set up a cross-functional account team including colleagues from commercial, supply chain, finance and corporate, with everyone clear on their role in facilitating donations. The FareShare relationship is now managed much more like a commercial account.

As a result of this, a stronger partnership has now been formed. Colleagues from both parties are clear on who their relevant contact is and keep in touch regularly. This has resulted in regular, consistent and more timely donations to FareShare.

Through frequent conversations, additional stock has been identified that, in the past, McCain was not aware that FareShare could accept, for example mislabelled products. The profile of food surplus redistribution has also been raised internally, with increased awareness of the partnership across the business - some colleagues have taken part in volunteering day at a local FareShare depots (photographed).

A proud FareShare Leading Food Partner

McCain is proud to be a FareShare Leading Food Partner 2021 and 2022. Since the partnership began, McCain has donated over 1.3 million meals worth of surplus food. Over this time, most of the donated surplus food has been frozen product. However, during the Covid-19 pandemic, McCain was able to donate over 300 tonnes of raw potatoes to FareShare, which were redistributed to charities and community groups. The partnership has contributed to McCain being zero waste to landfill since 2017 in the UK.

“Mark Hodge, VP Marketing says: “As a family-run business, we believe that McCain GB has an important role to play in helping to support thriving communities. We’re incredibly proud to work with FareShare, donating over 1.3 million meals since our partnership began. We look forward to continuing to strengthen our partnership to help families that need it.”

“Fiona Robertston, FareShare Commercial Manager says: "We are very grateful to McCain Foods for their continuous support. They've shown a real commitment to preventing food waste by setting up a new cross functional team internally. This team works hard to ensure that any surplus food they have reaches the plates of those who need it most. We are so proud to partner with McCain Foods and we look forward to working closely together in the future."

Find out more about the partnership

Fiona Robertson, Commercial Manager, FareShare, [email protected]