How can an energy consultancy company help tackle food poverty?

Optimised Energy, the award-winning energy services business, is helping to fight food poverty in the community close to its Bristol office.

Once each month, Optimised Energy’s Head of Operations, Roy Bidder, volunteers for FoodCycle, managing a team of cycle volunteers to help collect surplus food from supermarkets and greengrocers around Bristol for community meal projects.

What is Food Poverty?

According to Sustain, the alliance for better food and farming, “Food poverty is the inability to obtain healthy affordable food.” Yet the impact of food poverty stretches far beyond basic hunger. According to Sustain, food poverty means, “worse diet, worse access, worse health, higher percentage of income on food and less choice from a restricted range of foods. Above all food poverty is about less or almost no consumption of fruit & vegetables.”

Food Poverty in Bristol

The number of low income families in Bristol is higher than the national average. Whilst it is difficult to gauge the precise ratio of food poverty to low incomes, previous studies elsewhere have estimated that 20% of the population earning the UK national minimum wage or less are “food insecure”, with 6% “food insecure with hunger”. According to The Matthew Street Project, more than 69,000 people are income deprived in Bristol. Potentially, that’s a lot of people eating poorly, and far too many people not eating enough.

Optimised Energy Gets On Its Bike

Since 2009, FoodCycle has been making a difference, and Roy is playing his part in ensuring not only that more people in Bristol eat well, but that less food is wasted. The results benefit people and the environment. Since launch in 2009, FoodCycle has prevented 425,000kg of food from going to landfill and served 1,011,655 meals.

This story shows how Optimised Energy supports Goal 2: Zero Hunger, specifically Target 3.1: “By 2030, end hunger and ensure access by all people, in particular the poor and people in vulnerable situations, including infants, to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round.”

About Optimised Energy

Optimised Energy is a full-service energy consulting business. They deliver energy cost and kilowatt hour savings for their clients through a ‘Managed Energy Services’ approach that combines best-of-breed hardware, software and service.

Learn more about Optimised Energy.