King Charles to appoint Milton Keynes a 'super hub' in his huge new scheme to tackle food poverty

Milton Keynes has been chosen by the King himself to become a ‘super hub’ in his nationalfight to tackle food poverty and food waste.

King Charles is setting up a huge new scheme called the Coronation Food Project, with the aim of rescuing surplus food from growers, manufacturers and retailers then redirecting it to the people who need it most.

While millions are going hungry in this country, tonnes of edible food is wasted, he says.

The plans were outlined in a special interview with The Big Issue this week, where the King said cost of living pressures are resulting in “too many families and individuals missing out on nutritious meals”.

The Coronation Food Project aims to save more surplus food, “supercharge” existing distribution networks and increase the grants and funding opportunities available to them.

A handful of super hubs will be set up across the country to collect the food, starting with Northern Ireland, Glasgow, Merseyside and London and later joined by Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds and Milton Keynes.

More than 8,500 charities and support organisations in the UK already rely upon surplus food supplies. The MK Food Bank, visited by the King when he came to Milton Keynes in February, is one of these.

Before his visit, he orchestrated donations of two large fridge freezers to the Food Bank's serving centres, Frank Moran Community Centre and The Winter Night Shelter, and also connected the charity with organisations who can support them with food supplies.

The King also paid a surprise visit to the team at St Mark’s Meals, a local charity dedicated to helping children who are experiencing food poverty.

To make the scheme work nationally, the organisations and charities involved will need many more fridges, freezers and refrigerated lorries, and the Coronation Food Project has already enabled 800 fridges and freezers to be donated across the UK.

Baroness Louise Casey has been appointed by King Charles to help develop the project. She said: “We’re almost a quarter of the way into the century, I think to myself in those terms,” says Baroness Louise Casey. “My god, at the end of 2023, the fact that we’re all having to work out how we can get better supply of food to families who have no money is a pretty awful place for us to be.

“King Charles is helping draw attention to both sides of this issue,” Casey says. But why? “Obviously, the man is obsessed with the environment. I think he also understands the importance of food, both from an agricultural perspective but also a very human perspective...He’s very conscious that people are having a tough time.

“We’re not coming in to invent something new,” she explains. “We’re coming in to support and expand what already exists. Basically, we’re boosting the sector to be able to reduce the amount of food waste, and use that for a social purpose.”

Statistically, one in five people in the UK aren’t sure where their next meal is coming from. That equates to more than 13 million people experiencing food insecurity, including four million children.