King to mark 76th birthday by opening food distribution hubs

The King will open two hubs designed to save and circulate tonnes of surplus food as he marks his 76th birthday.

The opening of the distribution centres will also mark the first anniversary of the Coronation Food Project, an initiative to support charities feeding the nation with unwanted food.

Charles, who celebrates his birthday next Thursday, will open the initiative’s first two Coronation Food Hubs – one in person and one virtually.

It is hoped the hubs will help charities like FareShare and the Felix Project to support communities in need.

The hub the King is visiting will host a “surplus food festival”, with meals created from food which would otherwise have gone to waste.

Charles will tour the new facility, meeting beneficiaries and representatives of food banks, schools and community groups.

The Coronation Food Project is investing in a network of hubs, adding scale and capacity to warehouses, boosting cold storage facilities and funding lorries, vans and drivers to boost their distribution capacity.

A newly installed industrial freezer, which Charles will view during the visit, will increase capacity by 400%, improving the charity’s ability to preserve more surplus food.

Buckingham Palace said there are three pillars to the Coronation Food Project, with the first being the goal of saving more surplus food.

The second is “supercharging” food distribution networks to ensure surplus produce can reach those who need it most through the creation of a network of hubs.

And the third is delivering a flexible funding programme to support the wider sector and a consortium of “pioneering food-rescue initiatives”.

The palace said “remarkable progress” has already been made towards reaching the project’s three goals, pointing out that the project has already saved an additional 940 tonnes of surplus food – equivalent to 2,240,000 meal portions.

Some £15 million has been raised to design, build and run a network of up to 10 hubs across the UK.

The initiative has also given £715,000 in community food grants to 33 organisations across the UK.

This includes a grant to East Belfast Mission which runs a range of food related projects, including a daily community fridge for people to come each week to collect high quality fresh surplus produce and UKHarvest’s Grub Club which involves pupils and parents in distributing surplus food to schools.

An impact report, detailing the work of the Coronation Food Project, will be released on Thursday.