Retail co-ops join together to combat food injustice
News item
Retail societies including some of the largest high street co-ops across the UK, today (30 November 2020) launched a collective campaign to support local food banks and combat food injustice.
Give a Little Something
The Give a Little Something campaign sees the largest retail co-ops in the UK donating food, toiletries and household goods to local food banks, and inviting the public and other co-ops to do the same by dropping donations off in store. Lincolnshire Co-op, for example, is setting up 'reverse advent calendars' where trolleys fill up with donations of goods during December.
Campaigning for food justice
Some are also inviting members to donate their dividend to food justice charities such as Fareshare, Trussell Trust and local food banks who support people within their communities with emergency supplies.
The campaign is not just about encouraging donations and emergency support. It's about changing policy. Collectively, they are calling for people to use the Co-op Party's Food Justice Finder tool to find out if their local council has a food champion, and to write to them urging them to do more to combat food poverty using a simple template email. Whilst others, including East of England Coop, are backing the Trussell Trust's Hunger Free Future campaign.
A year-round commitment
Major co-ops across the UK support food programmes all year round, including recent high profile support from The Co-op and others for Marcus Rashford's free school meal campaigning and support for holiday hunger programmes.
People can support the campaign by making donations in stores, writing to their councils and sharing messages of support on social media using #GiveALittleSomething.
Give a Little Something
