s, made from lightweight Correx plastic, have been specifically designed for Swindon Foodbank in order to improve the logistics of food collections at the charity.When organisations donate food, it is often presented for collection in a myriad of re-used cardboard boxes and carrier bags. Whilst large donations of food are always welcome, the logistics of handling such volumes has been a resource consuming and time-consuming effort for Foodbank. Boxes are often flimsy and overfilled; bags can split spilling contents, and stowing the food inside a van for safe transportation means having to decant it into regular shaped rigid boxes.
Andrew Hill, Project Manager at Foodbank said: “We often pick up donations from multiple sources in a single van run, so being able to quickly segregate each donation by donor and load the van quickly is essential. At Autumn Harvest Thanksgiving, we receive multiple donations in bulk, last year we had 900kg from a school and even with the enthusiastic help of the children it took an hour to pack the food at the point of collection.”
GWP’s solution to the problem was to design a flat packed, easy assemble box with a clear sleeve on the outside. The boxes are collapsible with handle holes and are a consistent size and shape to fit the Foodbank’s van. When not in use the boxes can be flat-packed so take up less of the Foodbank’s valuable warehouse space. The boxes are waterproof, stack securely and safely, are easy to label and re-label and quicker and safer to move.
The boxes are supplied to donor organisations ahead of time so that when Foodbank volunteers arrive to collect the donated food they are given regular-sized, strong boxes already neatly filled and clearly labelled. This saves a significant amount of time and improves recording accuracy.
Ruth Cook, MD of GWP said, “We worked with Foodbank last year to help improve the handling and transport of food for distribution to their clients and we know that our input and donation of custom-made boxes has made a great deal of difference to the charity. We are delighted that, once again, our expertise in packaging design and logistics has been able to help Foodbank, this time at food donation points. We know that demand for Foodbank’s services is on the increase and we’re really pleased that we could help. We’d also like to thank Swanline and DS Smith for their support with this project”.
Earlier this year GWP announced they had adopted Swindon Foodbank as their chosen charity. Since then GWP have helped Foodbank with their logistical activity including inventory management and stock control, IT and electrical expertise and storage.
