Community Shop Kirkdale gets huge boost from Ocado

Award-winning social enterprise Community Shop has received a landmark cash donation from online grocery retailer Ocado, as both organisations combine forces to ensure greater food access and support to those most in need at this unprecedented time.

Community Shop currently has a store in Halton and plans to open in Kirkdale soon. It operates a network of social supermarket stores which provide high-quality, low cost food and essential products to people living in low income communities and in receipt of welfare support.

Ocado’s generous donation is supporting Community Shop to extend its reach to even more individuals and families in need of immediate food access.

This includes giving members of the community who would be eligible for Community Shop but do not live locally to one, access to membership of a nearby Company Shop store superstore, as well as running various new initiatives to provide deeper impact in the communities it already serves, including through emergency food and product hamper deliveries. Community Shop is aiming to create and deliver up to 150,000 emergency parcels in the coming weeks. 

The donation is also boosting the pace of upcoming store openings, helping to bring Community Shop to Kirkdale in Liverpool.

With the help of Ocado, Onward Homes, Liverpool City Council, the Liverpool Mayor and other local organisations, Community Shop will be able to provide transformative support to a community experiencing significant deprivation – only heightened by today’s circumstances. The new store opening will also create a lasting local legacy, demonstrating the long-term impact of Ocado’s generous donation. 

To provide further support to the Liverpool City Region, and with Ocado’s help, Community Shop has also teamed up with charity Everton in the Community and is delivering over 100 emergency food each week parcels to families in the Kirkdale area who are most in need.

To maximise the social and economic impact of Ocado’s donation, Community Shop is collaborating with other voluntary organisations across the communities it serves, to provide maximum support to those facing hardship.

In today’s current climate, there are more people than ever before requiring food access and food support. To combat the Coronavirus crisis, Community Shop and its founding organisation Company Shop Group is scaling up its operations to help retailers and manufacturers to help those in need.

As the largest redistributor of surplus food and products, Company Shop Group has the national scale, technical capacity and infrastructure to adapt and respond to the surplus arising in the supply chain, providing bespoke surplus solutions for retailers and manufacturers which protect revenues and maximise social impact.

John Marren, Founder and Chairman of Community Shop: 

“We are incredibly grateful for Ocado’s generous cash donation. Their support is invaluable and will go so far to help our communities and those most in need, especially during these unprecedented times.

“There are more people than ever before requiring food access and food support and so with Ocado’s generosity, we will be able to provide immediate help to even more people, as well as continuing to create a lasting legacy in the communities we’re so proud to serve.”

Jo West, Head of Sustainability for Ocado Retail said: 

“Community Shop make an incredible difference in the local communities they operate in. Presented with this exceptional crisis, they have really stepped up their service. We couldn’t be prouder to donate £300,000 to help them to bring food to people in great need and provide support to the local communities during this very difficult time.”   

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