Charity starts at work
Wholesalers unite to raise money for a good cause
Employees from Scottish wholesaler, JB Foods, and foodservice buying and marketing group, Caterforce teamed up in December to tackle homelessness across Scotland. Staff from the two companies volunteered as an official catering partner for social enterprise Social Bite’s Sleep in the Park event.
The wholesaler supplied fundraising events with essential catering supplies. Together with donations from Caterforce of its own-label Chefs’ Selections products, the two companies provided thousands of people taking part in the sleep out with hot drinks throughout the night.
This is the second year JB Foods have volunteered at the event, as Charlotte Thompson of JB Foods explained: “We supported Sleep in the Park last year, which was its first year, and it has already grown to become one of the world’s biggest events of its kind. It’s fantastic that this takes place across four cities in Scotland and is calling for an end to homelessness in our country. For this reason, it’s an easy decision for us to support the cause where we can.”
More than 10,000 people turned out to spend the night outside across Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Glasgow with the number believed to be the world’s biggest sleep-out event.
“The event is an innovative way to raise awareness of the difficulties homeless people face,” said Nick Redford, Managing Director at Caterforce. “We were made aware of Sleep in the Park’s good work through JB Foods. To help support our member in its CSR efforts and an extremely worthy cause in Social Bite, we supplied essential items to help those who were challenged to spend an extremely cold night outside.”
Other wholesalers are pulling out the stops to raise money for a good cause, too. A number of colleagues and Members of Unitas Wholesale Ltd last year took part in a Fantasy Football league competition.
The winner of the competition was Unitas Wholesale member, Chris Hughes, Managing Director of Regal Wholesale Ltd, the Wirral, Merseyside. Chris has chosen to donate the price of £1300 to the Wirral based charity, the UTS Foundation, which will fund weekly yoga sessions for cancer patients.
Caterforce charity Chris Hughes JB Foods Nick Redford Regal Wholesale Sleep in the Park Unitas Wholesale