Social Responsibility

 Corporate Social Responsibility

We care about everything we do and the way in which we do it. We care about the environment, our community and our employees. We source from local suppliers whenever practical, to help reduce food miles. 

We care about great food and that it is produced in an ethical and sustainable way. We are committed to environmental responsibility and recycle whenever appropriate to ensure levels of waste are minimised. We actively promote environmental awareness across the company.


We believe everyone has a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate than themselves. Our support of Fare Share is one of the ways in which we make a contribution towards the wellbeing of others in the community. We support local charities and organisations such as Hampshire Fare as well as working with schools, colleges and hospitals to promote food. We care about our team and work to provide a healthy and supportive working environment that values and develops every member. 


01 Corporate Social
Responsibility

Harvest Fine Foods Corporate Social Responsibility 

Since Harvest Fine Foods started trading as a limited company in 2001 our responsibility to our planet, our people and our community has always been at the forefront of our minds. We have always strived to do what is right and not what is easy to make sure our footprint on the world is as small and as positive as we can make it.ps enabling us to support local businesses.

02 Community

Harvest are Corporate Partners at the Saints Foundation, the charitable arm of Southampton Football Club. We support the Foundation to run welfare programmes for vulnerable families in the Southampton area.


Through our partnership with City Catering Southampton, Harvest also supports vulnerable families across Southampton with the delivery of ‘Cook at Home’ recipe boxes. These boxes help support families during the school holidays, some of whom may be entitled to receive free school meals during term time.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Harvest’s Partnership with City Catering Southampton as well as Crestwood Community College saw us delivering thousands of high quality fresh free school meal boxes direct to the homes of children while schools were closed, or the children were in isolation. 


Harvest holds regular fundraising events for Fareshare, the UK’s national network of charitable food redistributors. During 2020 Harvest raised £10,000 for this charity. On top of fundraising Harvest also support Fareshare by making regular food donations direct from our warehouse to them. A recent quote from their Totton, Southampton branch from May 2023 stated "Good morning, just wanted to say a massive thank you for your donations. your peaches went to all the schools that we work with, and you supplied over 500 students with a fruit snack for break. We appreciate everything you donate to us and glad to work with harvest foods in the future" (Carrie Martin, Warehouse Shift Coordinator, Southern Central)


Harvest are also Commercial Partners of Hampshire Fare, the organisation bringing local producers across Hampshire together. This is where we build many of our supply partnerships enabling us to support local businesses.


 

03 Environment

Harvest’s commitment to the Environment includes sourcing products from local suppliers when and where we can. We currently have around 40 local suppliers from Dorset, Wiltshire, Hampshire, Isle of Wight and West Sussex. Whenever possible we will collect from our local suppliers using our own vehicles as they return from their customer deliveries. In this way we lessen the impact of traffic in the local area and reduce the number of empty vehicles on the road. All Harvest car fleet are all now hybrid as of December 2022.


One of Harvest's key objectives was to become zero to landfill which we are proud to report that we completed in December 2021. Our general waste is currently sifted for further recycling, and any non-recyclable waste will be sent to an energy recovery facility which helps create energy to power local houses within our community.

Our 56,000 square foot depot utilises LED lighting and state-of-the-art refrigeration to reduce our electricity consumption. 


Harvest utilises route management software to ensure our delivery vehicles follow the most fuel-efficient route possible and we also train our drivers in safe and fuel-efficient driving. Our Transport Management team will monitor the drivers Kilometre per litre (KPL) performance working to reduce the overall fuel consumption on an ongoing basis.


We will continue to work with our partners to develop innovative recyclable packaging that maintains the integrity of our products in the supply chain, in order that they arrive at our customers premises in the same condition and with no reduction in shelf–life.

04 Industry

The commitment Harvest has to our social responsibility does not just include our environment and our community. Harvest believes in supporting the industry we serve and work with several local catering colleges to support budding young chefs with their training. A day “in-trade” at Harvest’s depot is incorporated into the syllabus of many of the catering courses with our local colleges to help students understand the supply chain.


Harvest are the principal sponsor and organiser of the Inter College Cooking competition where budding young chefs from all our local colleges across the region face off to showcase their skills to the judges. 


Harvest also sponsor the Junior Chef Academy, part of Highbury Colleges awareness programme to attract school leavers to try out catering courses and promote a career path in Hospitality. 


Harvest are the principal sponsor of the Rotary Club Young Chef of the Year competition for 14, 15 and 16 year olds to also encourage young chefs into Catering College.




05 Goals & Objectives

Harvest is committed to supporting Naomi House & Jacks Place through 2023, a local charity, Naomi House nursing and medical staff provide individualised nursing care that helps to enhance short lives and allows local families to make the most of their precious time with their children. 

Harvest is committed to fund raising for our local community and have targeted ourselves to raise £5,000 by the end of the 2023.


Harvest will continue tosupport Fareshare by making regular food donations direct from our warehouse to them. FareShare provides good quality food to charities and community organisations in Hampshire. They support breakfast clubs, food banks, lunch clubs for older people, night shelters, day centres, community cafes and projects supporting vulnerable young people and those with addictions and mental health. Working closely with the food and drink industry they ensure that no good food goes to waste.