Shoppers donate 368 kilos of food at Rochdale Foodbank's Morrisons Kingsway drive

Shoppers at Morrisons Kingsway have donated a remarkable 368 kilos of food to Rochdale Foodbank after a two-day food drive at the store last Thursday and Friday.

The foodbank thanked all the generous shoppers who added extra items to their shopping, saying donations came in all shapes and sizes and included many of its most needed items. The charity also paid special tribute to the volunteers who staffed the collection and made the event a success, adding that every single item received will make a big difference to its clients.

Rochdale Foodbank has been part of life in the town for more than a decade. Registered as a charity in its own right in 2017, it operates as part of the Trussell network of food banks and is run almost entirely by volunteers - around 70 of them - who sort, date-check and pack donated food into emergency parcels at its base off Newgate in the town centre.

How the foodbank works

The foodbank operates on a referral system. Care professionals - including GPs, health visitors, social workers, Citizens Advice staff, welfare officers, the police and probation services - identify people in crisis and issue them with a foodbank voucher. That voucher can then be exchanged at a foodbank session for an emergency parcel containing at least three days of nutritionally balanced food. Volunteers meet clients over a cup of tea and can signpost them to agencies able to help with the longer-term problem, from debt advice to benefits support.

Alongside its main sessions, the foodbank has expanded in recent years. A Saturday morning session runs at Branches Christian Fellowship in Smallbridge, where clients can collect parcels between 10am and 12pm, and the charity has also opened Rochdale Central Pantry in the Rochdale Exchange Shopping Centre - a membership pantry for people who have recently needed foodbank support and could use a little extra help each week.

If you need help, you can call the foodbank on 0300 102 1646 or visit rochdale.foodbank.org.uk, which lists the organisations able to issue vouchers.

How to donate

More than nine in ten items given out by Trussell network food banks are donated by the public, which is why collections like the Morrisons drive matter so much. There are permanent donation points in Rochdale's larger supermarkets, including Tesco, Asda and Morrisons, intended for food purchased in-store. Larger donations can be dropped off at the foodbank's warehouse via the Newgate service area - ring ahead on 0300 102 1646 for big deliveries - and the foodbank publishes a shopping list of the items it most urgently needs on its website. Money donations, which help cover running costs and fill gaps in donated stock, can also be made through the website.

As the foodbank itself puts it: even if it's just one tin every week, every tin helps.