Slaughter and May provides pro bono advice on collaboration to tackle food waste and redistribute surplus food

Slaughter and May has been advising charities FareShare, The Felix Project and the Institute of Grocery Distribution on a pro bono basis, on their collaboration to launch Alliance Food Sourcing. The initiative will work with retailers, manufacturers, logistics providers and others to repurpose surplus food for distribution to communities in need across the UK. The Alliance, supported by key leaders in the food industry, will work alongside the Coronation Food Project.

With the expansion across the country of food hubs operated by FareShare, The Felix Project and other charities, there will be greater capacity to divert food that might have otherwise gone to waste. Funds raised by the Alliance will enable it to recover surplus food that would otherwise go to waste, and allow it to be redistributed to charities and community groups across the country that turn it into meals.

Lawyers from Slaughter and May advised on various matters during the development of the collaboration, including corporate, commercial and competition law issues. The firm will continue to support the collaboration in tackling food waste and converting this into meals as it starts to operate at significant scale to reach those in need.

The Slaughter and May team advising on this project comprised Roland Turnill, Sinead Boden, Natalie Goodman and Natasha Voake, with support from the firm’s financing, IP and competition teams.

Senior Partner Roland Turnill said, “The initiative has the potential to create large-scale change when it comes to tackling both food waste and food poverty, and I am proud of the support we were able to offer. Pro bono work is incredibly important to us as a firm, and we aim to support projects such as this, which can utilise our legal expertise to deliver impactful societal change.”

Associate Natalie Goodman said, “We have been able to input and co-ordinate legal expertise from across legal practice areas of the firm, supporting this charity collaboration that aims to divert food waste at a large scale to be converted into millions of meals to reach those in need.”