Good morning, supporters!

After sending numerous emails, I have had a response from a member of the Community Affairs team. The email contains quite a lot of information so I will paste the most important bits here:

"During the summer, we trialled a ‘Donate to FareShare' button on our Groceries Online platform, allowing customers to make a financial donation to FareShare. The money raised during the trial is the equivalent of moving 298K meals across their network of over 11,000 organisations."...

..."We are currently working with our online team to explore how we can offer a year round food donation element. In the short term, this might be a ‘Donate to FareShare' button but we are also looking into your suggestion of adding items to a basket that can be placed in our Front of Store donation points."

This is really exciting and I'm so pleased to hear that Sainsbury's are looking at a longer-term solution as well as considering our petition's idea of donating to the in-store basket as well! 

HOWEVER, the lockdown is look set to continue for at least another few months and the government is threatening to cut universal credit at the end of March. Our communities need us more than ever. I have asked Sainsbury's if they will commit to adding a Donate button before the end of lockdown and have asked them how they will help us donate during this time. 

In the meantime, let's keep sharing and promoting the petition - we've had another 1,500 supporters since yesterday!