Alnwick District Food Bank
Impact Report July 2024 – June 2025
The Food Bank and its satellite hub in Rothbury have enjoyed another successful year meeting the needs of those who are struggling to put food on their tables due to cost-of-living, benefit issues, poor health, relationship breakdown, the difficulties of rurality when it comes to accessing cheaper food, rural transport difficulties and a variety of other bespoke reasons for needing additional support with their food needs.
The Food Bank continues to enjoy excellent community, corporate and Trust and Foundation
support. Regular retail partners in the town include Sainsbury’s, Lidl, Morrisons, Newcastle Building Society, Pets at Home and others on an ad-hoc basis. We have been fortunate in the last three years to receive significant support from Northumberland County Council through the Government’s Household Support Grant, initially to meet greatly increased demand due to the pandemic but likely to end in 2025, as well as from a number of local trusts via the Community Foundation. Other significant donors have included Cubico, owners of Wandylaw Wind Farm, Northumberland Estates, Alncom, The Masonic charity, and others.
We also continue to receive welcome support from a range of church communities in our area. The Food Bank was originally founded by Alnwick Baptist Church, extended via Alnwick Churches Together, and continues to attract food and funds from compassionate church communities across our patch for which we are very grateful. Our method of founding also brings us a range of individual, regular donors, whose support is greatly valued.
Where we purchase food stocks, we aim to ‘buy local’ .
We are in a healthy financial position at the end of 2024/25, with at least one year’s running costs in hand.
The Food Bank has no paid staff and is run solely by volunteers. It is organised and run by a Trustee Group of six, a Team Leader group of 5, and around 45-50 regular volunteers who assist in a number of ways – collecting donated goods, staffing the Food Bank during the two mornings a week it operates/packs deliveries, restocking shelves, delivering food. We regularly receive excellent, positive feedback from everyone who comes into contact with our cheerful, friendly and efficient people – we simply couldn’t do what we do without them. Re-organisation of local Council departments has meant that our training programme has lapsed slightly, we aim to undertake a training review (moving and handling and food safety) during 2025. We have a permanent waiting list for volunteer opportunities.
Over the past 12 months, we have looked carefully at our client base. Client numbers leapt up significantly during the Covid 19 Pandemic, when the sensible decision was made to accept the vast majority of those who asked for help to our books. Alnwick is a tourist town which relies on a significant amount of seasonal and hospitality work which was badly affected by lockdown restrictions. This meant that our client numbers jumped from around 35 at the start of the crisis, to about 140 households at its peak.
During 2024/25 we undertook a review of the length of time that current clients have been using the services of the Food Bank, which was initially founded to meet short-term food needs for families and individuals upon referral from the Jobcentre, Communities Together, Citizens Advice or local social
and health services. We were surprised to see a substantial tranche of clients who had been accessing the Food Bank for longer than two years.
After some discussion it was decided to write to these clients giving notice that they would be unable to use the service for a period of 12 weeks, when a further referral might be obtained. The plan was to work with referrers to ensure that those who were using the Food Bank were still in genuine need and if necessary to signpost to other sources of help. As a result, we currently support around 65 households in Alnwick and surrounding areas, down from around 90.
We have worked closely with referrers to remind them of the short-term support we were founded to offer and believe we have achieved a better understanding by them. We are still able to offer 12 weeks of significant food support including meat, dairy, regular tinned and packet staples, fruit and vegetables, self-selected by clients to meet their needs. This is more than is offered by other local food banks, who sometimes offer 3 parcels in 3 months with no further access for 12 months. We are fortunate to be in a position to offer this generous package collected in person from Alnwick and delivered in the Coquet Valley from Rothbury, which is very much appreciated by clients.
We continue to attract around 5 or 6 new referrals each month.
Our website has been redesigned as we took up the pro-bono services of local web designers Lazy Grace, whose staff members have updated our content and operating systems, our thanks to them.
Carolyn Reynolds, Chair, Alnwick District Food Bank
July 2025
Statement of Activity
Alnwick District Food Bank
July 1, 2024-June 30, 2025
| DISTRIBUTION ACCOUNT | TOTAL |
|---|---|
| Income | |
| Discounts/Refunds Given | 19.70 |
| Donations | 6,873.98 |
| HMRC Gift Aid | 65.57 |
| Household Support Grant Northumberland CC | 35,000.00 |
| Named Donation | £57,299.85 |
| CAF Gift Aid | 4,754.05 |
| Total for Named Donation | £62,053.90 |
| Other Grant Aid | 7,780.00 |
| Total for Income | £111,793.15 |
| Cost of Sales | |
| Gross Profit | £111,793.15 |
| Expenses | |
| Food | £39,143.19 |
| Rothbury | 3,734.79 |
| Total for Food | £42,877.98 |
| Miscellaneous | 42.69 |
| Office/General Administrative Expenditures | 3,207.60 |
| Rent | 0 |
| Rent - Coquetdale Hub | 2,324.00 |
| Rent - Lindisfarne Centre | 4,803.00 |
| Total for Rent | £7,127.00 |
| Total for Expenses | £53,255.27 |
| Net Operating Income | £58,537.88 |
| Other Income | |
| Interest earned | 2,579.94 |
| Total for Other Income | £2,579.94 |
| Other Expenses | |
| Net Other Income | £2,579.94 |
| Net Income | £61,117.82 |
1/1
Accrual Basis Thursday, August 28, 2025 04:14 PM GMTZ
Independent examiner's report on the accounts
Section A Independent Examiner’s Report
Report to the trustees/ members of
Charity Name
Alnwick District Food Bank
On accounts for the year ended
30[th] June 2025
Charity no (if any)
1173294
Set out on pages
1 - 2
(remember to include the page numbers of additional sheets)
Responsibilities and basis of report
I report to the trustees on my examination of the accounts of the above charity (“the Trust”) for the year ended 30[th] June 2025
As the charity trustees of the Trust, you are responsible for the preparation of the accounts in accordance with the requirements of the Charities Act 2011 (“the Act”).
I report in respect of my examination of the Trust’s accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination, I have followed the applicable Directions given by the Charity Commission under section 145(5)(b) of the Act.
Independent examiner's statement
I have completed my examination. I confirm that no material matters have come to my attention in connection with the examination which gives me cause to believe that in, any material respect:
-
accounting records were not kept in accordance with section 130 of the Act or
-
the accounts do not accord with the accounting records
I have no concerns and have come across no other matters in connection with the examination to which attention should be drawn in order to enable a proper understanding of the accounts to be reached.
- Please delete the words in the brackets if they do not apply.
Signed:
Date:
29[th] September 2025
Name:
Jean Barr
Relevant professional qualification(s) or body (if any):
1
October 2018
IER
Address:
37 Springfield Park
Alnwick
Northumberland NE66 2NH
Section B Disclosure
Only complete if the examiner needs to highlight matters of concern (see CC32, Independent examination of charity accounts: directions and guidance for examiners).
Give here brief details of any items that the examiner wishes to disclose .
2
October 2018
IER