City's e-scooter and bike hire company Lime announces partnership with Milton Keynes Food Bank

The move comes as part of the company’s ‘Lime Hero’ program in Milton Keynes.

It will allow for the cost of each Lime ride taken within the city to be rounded up to the nearest pound, and the difference donated to the food bank with aim of helping provide emergency food parcels and more access to food banks to families and individuals in financial difficulties.

The partnership comes as research from The Food Foundation found that in 2024 approximately eight million adults and four million children were living in food insecurity in the UK - a number that MK Food Bank is working tirelessly to help lower.

During 2024, MK Food Bank helped provide 604,180 items of food to 4,743 households in Milton Keynes thanks to vital food and monetary donations. Moving forward, donations raised by Lime rides will help to increase the number of households supported by the charity even further.

Lime launched its e-bike service in Milton Keynes in 2018, and later introduced its e-scooters to the city in 2021, to help offer a green, and affordable alternative for residents to travel in the city. Riders have embraced the alternative transport mode in the last 6 years, with 500,000 unique users having taken over 2.5 million rides in the city.

Alice Pleasant, Senior Public Affairs Manager at Lime said: “At Lime, we remain committed to supporting all of the communities that we operate in. We are honoured to be supporting MK Food Bank in Milton Keynes with our latest Lime Hero partnership, which aims to help raise funds for those in need of food crisis support in the city. Riders should look out for in-app and in-email messaging on how they can support the charity and further make a difference in the local community.”

Louisa Hobbs, Operations Manager MK Food Bank, said: “All of us at MK Food Bank are delighted that the team at Lime chose to support our services as part of their commitment to support local communities in MK, with their round up scheme. The cost-of-living crisis has led to increased demand for food support. Requests for these emergency parcels have gone up by around 90% over the last two years and every week about 50 people are contacting us for the very first time. These numbers are rising all the time as people struggle to afford basic essentials and pay their bills, and more and more we are also hearing from individuals and families who need longer term support just to make ends meet. On behalf of our community, our very grateful thanks to you all.”

The introduction of Lime Hero in Milton Keynes is the latest charity partner addition in Lime’s global roundup donation program, which is now live in nearly 100 markets globally, across 10+ countries including: United Kingdom, United States, France, Germany, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Sweden, Hungary, Spain, Canada, Bulgaria, and Austria.

Since it launched, Lime Hero has raised nearly £600,000 GBP globally for over 85 nonprofit and charitable organisations, helping support numerous local causes from wildlife conservation and air pollution, to homelessness and childhood hunger.