Bakkavor Group, the UK’s leading provider of fresh prepared food, is proud to announce its new three-year charity partnerships with GroceryAid and the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation.
Agust Gudmundsson, Chief Executive Officer, Bakkavor, said: “We’re delighted and proud to be working with GroceryAid and the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation. Both of our new charity partners provide fundamental support to individuals in need and we’re committed to doing what we can to help them make a difference to many people’s lives over the next three years.”
GroceryAid, is a well-known industry charity that supports grocery colleagues by providing emotional, practical and financial help, including its free, confidential helpline, which is available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It has been helping grocery colleagues since 1857, and it now offers a wide variety of assistance, including mental health and wellbeing support, family and relationship advice, debt management, back to work support and counselling. They also assist those who may be experiencing financial hardship due to a change in circumstances and spent over £5m last year supporting thousands of people in need.
Further to this, the charity’s COVID-19 Fund provides enhanced support for grocery colleagues in need of mental health support, financial grants and bereavement financial assistance.
Bakkavor will support GroceryAid by raising greater awareness of the charity’s efforts, ensuring all 16,000 UK colleagues know about the support available to them, as well as actively participating in the charity’s events programme.
Mandi Leonard, Welfare Director, GroceryAid said: “It is an honour to be chosen as Bakkavor’s Charity Partner for the next three years. We are extremely grateful for their support and look forward to working together to raise valuable funds, which will help GroceryAid continue providing welfare support.
“In the last six months, the demand for GroceryAid’s emotional and practical support, through our helpline, digital wellbeing tools and partner services, has increased over 200%. There is no doubt that this partnership will help GroceryAid raise further awareness of its services both within Bakkavor and the wider grocery industry, so that more colleagues know we are here to help.”
Bakkavor is also delighted to partner with the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation to help support its vision to make allergy history, by preventing and ending allergic disease, creating a world that is safe for everyone through pioneering allergy research. The partnership aims to raise greater awareness of the charity’s work, making a positive difference to people living with allergy. Bakkavor has pledged to support the foundation through an annual donation to fund vital research in this field. Tanya and Nadim Ednan-Laperouse, founders of the Natasha Allergy Research Foundation, said: “The Natasha Allergy Research Foundation is delighted to be working with Bakkavor to raise vital funds for the 2 million people in the UK living with food allergies. Anyone can be affected by food allergies – our children, parents, friends and colleagues – and they can have a devastating effect on people’s lives. With Bakkavor’s support we can make a real difference, funding important new medical research into the causes and treatments of food allergies and raising awareness of the issues faced by millions of people with allergic disease so that we can improve their quality of life and prevent avoidable illness and deaths.”
As part of Bakkavor’s ‘Trusted Partner’ ESG strategy, the Group will also continue to actively support employee fundraising initiatives for charities local to its sites. Bakkavor’s Site Employee Forum (SEF) representatives play a major role in both organising these fundraising activities and coordinating colleagues to volunteer with community projects. In 2020, our SEF’s great work included giving support to vulnerable people during the pandemic, a number of sponsored challenges and supporting local groups, teams and neighbours.
2022 marks the end of Bakkavor’s three-year charity partnerships with Action Against Hunger and FareShare, who continue their missions to eliminate food poverty and food waste. We would like to take this opportunity to thank both charities for working with us and all our colleagues who have gone above and beyond to raise funds for these important charities over the past three years.