On April 10^th, food redistribution charity and NCGM tenant City Harvest hosted a group of representatives from City of London Livery Companies on a tour of the Market, to showcase the charity’s work here and encourage additional ongoing support from the Livery Food Initiative (LFI).

This year, The LFI, a pan-Livery project, is committed to raising £120,000 to support City Harvest’s New Covent Garden Market operation, which in turn is providing nutritious food to vulnerable communities. City Harvest takes high quality still edible food which would otherwise be wasted and redistributes it to charities throughout London, serving men, women and children in dire need. It is a high-impact charity, achieving a Social Return on Investment of £12.70 for every £1 donated.

.

The site visit was hosted by City Harvest Chief Executive Sarah Calcutt (also a Non-Exec Board Member at CGMA) and members of her team based either at the Market or the charity’s Acton HQ. It offered a unique opportunity for participants from Livery Companies representing trades as diverse as Glovers, Tax Advisers and Glovers to learn about the market, City Harvest’s new site, and plans to increase the volume of fresh produce to London, where sadly the requirement for City Harvest’s service continues to grow on a daily basis.

Carla Thomas,Managing Director of Lambeth Food Hub, and Nicola Forsythe of Rotherhithe Community Kitchen then gave a City Harvest Community Partner overview of their organisations, their beneficiaries and the difference that City Harvest food makes.

City Harvest has maintained a longstanding relationship with NCGM. Since 2017, the charity had sent collection vans twice weekly to collect a cumulative 483 tonnes of fresh produce (equivalent to 1.15 million meals) over the seven years before opening a pilot unit in 2024. Those volumes have ramped up in the last 15 months. The charity collected three times more food, which as well as making a difference to the lives of 130,000+ people a week who receive food in one form or another from City Harvest, is simultaneously helping the market to significantly reduce food waste.

City Harvest believes its new satellite site in Rail Arch 5 can expand relationships with traders still further, accepting fresh produce donations six days a week. The aim now is to ‘rescue’ enough edible food from the market to provide over one million healthy meals annually.