It's "for charity"

[pete.young]

17 hours ago, Dan Dare said:

 

Tell me about it. Those donation boxes in Tesco and others, where you are asked to deposit food you've paid for to be given to charity, always annoy me.

 

So Tesco et al get paid full price, including their mark-up, for stuff, which they then pass on to local charities. Do they offer you stuff at cost if you put it in the charity box? Do they say "Thank you to our generous customers" (or even name-check them) when passing on stuff they've sold at full price/a profit? Er, no. So they get extra sales, plus a pat on the back and publicity for their "generosity". Makes you sick.

 

I'm a volunteer delivery driver for FareShare. FareShare is a registered charity which coordinates the collection of food and other items from supermarkets, wholesalers, logistics companies, and distribution to food banks, churches, schools and other charities.

 

One of the things we do is collect the items donated into the Tesco donation boxes. Besides the items donated by generous customers, the store uses the boxes as an efficient way of getting items to FareShare which are nearing their 'use by' or 'best before' dates. We weigh all collections and notify the stores, and they are able to display a thank-you message with this information on the boxes usually stating how many meals have been donated at a particular location in the last month. 

 

What annoys me is not  the boxes but the thankfully few members of the public who use the boxes as a dumping ground for out-of-date produce when they clear out their cupboards. Last week at one store there was an item donated with 'use by' date of 2021. This just wastes everybody's time. Why they don't just put stuff like that into the normal recycling/waste collection service I have no idea.

 

The donations add up, and some of the bigger stores in wealthy areas contribute a lot of stuff, by far the biggest source of donations is direct from the supermarkets themselves to the FareShare depots. I would estimate we get 60-70 percent of our donations directly from the supermarkets we work closely with, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer. The public doesn't see this side of it.

 

As others have said, none of this should be necessary in an ideal world, but the food distribution model in the UK is fundamentally broken. Efforts by organisations like FareShare are a sticking plaster over the cracks, but from what I see of our end customers, the need is real and growing.

[Rich]

OK, everyone calm the flip down please. If you want to argue, do it via PMs. Not here. Your luscious, pouting mod team would hate to have to lock the thread, but if it descends into acrimony, it's toast.

[Ben Jamin]

Sorry it hit a nerve!

If organisers are using 'for charity' as a guise to get free bands for their own benefit, then that's a distinctly different situation to playing to support a genuine fundraiser.

Definitely agree that if an event is being listed as 'for charity', then it should be really clear who and why etc, and the event should centre on that.

If there's uncertainty about where money is going, then it's understandable that folk would want their fair cut.

Maybe I've got a blindspot to this, as I work mostly in the charity sector, we're always really explicit about what we're doing and why. And so I'd expect it to be a clear, non-pressured decision on donating time or not.

I can see how bad actors might exploit this though.

Edited 5 hours ago by Ben Jamin

[MacDaddy]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

Your luscious, pouting mod team

 

💕😍💕

[Dan Dare]

1 hour ago, pete.young said:

I'm a volunteer delivery driver for FareShare. FareShare is a registered charity which coordinates the collection of food and other items from supermarkets, wholesalers, logistics companies, and distribution to food banks, churches, schools and other charities.

 

One of the things we do is collect the items donated into the Tesco donation boxes. Besides the items donated by generous customers, the store uses the boxes as an efficient way of getting items to FareShare which are nearing their 'use by' or 'best before' dates. We weigh all collections and notify the stores, and they are able to display a thank-you message with this information on the boxes usually stating how many meals have been donated at a particular location in the last month. 

 

What annoys me is not  the boxes but the thankfully few members of the public who use the boxes as a dumping ground for out-of-date produce when they clear out their cupboards. Last week at one store there was an item donated with 'use by' date of 2021. This just wastes everybody's time. Why they don't just put stuff like that into the normal recycling/waste collection service I have no idea.

 

The donations add up, and some of the bigger stores in wealthy areas contribute a lot of stuff, by far the biggest source of donations is direct from the supermarkets themselves to the FareShare depots. I would estimate we get 60-70 percent of our donations directly from the supermarkets we work closely with, Tesco, Morrisons, Sainsburys and Marks and Spencer. The public doesn't see this side of it.

 

As others have said, none of this should be necessary in an ideal world, but the food distribution model in the UK is fundamentally broken. Efforts by organisations like FareShare are a sticking plaster over the cracks, but from what I see of our end customers, the need is real and growing.

 

Fair comments and some interesting points. 

 

It doesn't alter my contention that Tesco et al are profiting from donations made by customers if customers buy items at full price. 

 

Stores actually benefit financially from donating food that is at use-by or best-before dates, because they don't have to pay for disposal (commercial waste collection is charged for). Those dates are very conservative, because stores don't want to risk being sued by people who don't observe them. The first place I head for in any supermarket is the yellow sticker aisle. Some of the stuff I buy doesn't actually get eaten until well after the date and I'm not dead yet. Just follow the "Does it smell OK and/or is there green fur on it?" rule.

 

Surely the nature of any out of date items put in boxes by the public is important. Use-by and best-before dates are a legal requirement in the UK. On things such as dry pasta and canned goods, they are pretty arbitrary. I have eaten things that, according to the label, are months or even years out of date with no ill effects.

 

If the food distribution model in the UK is fundamentally broken, a good proportion of the blame should be laid at the feet of the mega-supermarkets.

[Beedster]

9 minutes ago, Dan Dare said:

If the food distribution model in the UK is fundamentally broken, a good proportion of the blame should be laid at the feet of the mega-supermarkets.

 

I'm guessing the supermarkets will do what the government and various agencies allow them to, ironically given this thread they're business not charities 

[Steve Browning]

1 hour ago, Rich said:

OK, everyone calm the flip down please. If you want to argue, do it via PMs. Not here. Your luscious, pouting mod team would hate to have to lock the thread, but if it descends into acrimony, it's toast.

Soft southener!! Wait. So am I. 🙂

[TimR]

1 hour ago, Ben Jamin said:

Maybe I've got a blindspot to this, as I work mostly in the charity sector, we're always really explicit about what we're doing and why.

 

That will be because the charity will be regulated and its activities audited.

 

Which is different to someone off the street organising an event and donating the profits to a charity of their choice, or raising money for a local good cause. 

 

Charity comes in different forms. 

 

[acidbass]

I'm happy to do one charity gig a year without expenses or payment, provided I know where the money is going.  I did a gig once which was 'in memory' of a tragic event but which I later found out was run as a commercial enterprise.  I'm much more careful these days.

[Misdee]

 I suppose one question is what constitutes a charity?

 

I've never been asked to do a gig for a charity as such, but looking back I've been asked to do  a couple of gigs where the money went to a supposedly worthy cause. A benefit concert for the Miners Strike of 1984/5 springs to mind, and I played an AIDS benefit gig in the early 1990's. In both cases it didn't cost us to play. Regarding the first instance though, I still remember the arguments between members of the band over it. 

[Supernaut]

On 17/01/2026 at 15:54, Dan Dare said:

Just been offered yet another charity (i.e. everyone bar the musicians gets paid) gig. Support a good cause, "exposure", etc, etc.

 

As we're not completely heartless bar stewards and the good cause in question was a reasonable one, we suggested we might be paid expenses, so that, whilst we give our time and effort for free, we don't actually make a loss on the evening. Petrol still needs to be paid for, we'll need a drink or two plus something to eat and so on.

 

Cue pearl clutching on the part of the organiser, "but it's for charity, etc". "We realise that", we replied. "We don't expect to profit. We just don't want to lose money". They were not happy, so we said we'd pass, thanks.

 

What is wrong with these people? Are they wealthy dilettantes who don't have to worry about where the next penny comes from? Do the think everyone else is in the same privileged position as them?

Been turning down charity gigs for years. A con to get musicians to perform for free. 

[Ben Jamin]

3 hours ago, TimR said:

 

That will be because the charity will be regulated and its activities audited.

 

Which is different to someone off the street organising an event and donating the profits to a charity of their choice, or raising money for a local good cause. 

 

Charity comes in different forms. 

 

Yep there's so much admin! 😅

Okay that's a good point, thanks! I guess it's all in the communication - if it's not clear where money is going and why, totally understand the frustration.

In my view the responsibility is on organisers to be clear with this stuff, otherwise the void gets filled with assumed intentions and it can get messy pretty quick for everyone, even if everything is actually fine.

But we can always ask for clarification, and if everything's above-board and communicated well, no scheming going on, we can just say yes or no?

Shame on these venues/events that use 'charity' to their own end though, that sucks.