Food that would otherwise have gone to waste was shared out to charities and community groups to help people in need.

The Food Waste Collective distributed packages last week to 38 groups who serve the area’s homeless, vulnerable and crisis-hit.

Infinity Foods and other businesses donated foods including fresh fruit and vegetables, peanut butter, lentils and Basmati rice, often pulled from sale only due to damaged packaging.

The collective’s Saskia Wesnigk-Wood said demand for emergency supplies was growing.

She said: “The economy is creating more and more people who look to charity and community groups, and all the community groups don’t get as much funding as they used to “All the food that we distributed – three palette-fulls – could have all ended up in landfill, so we are making a very, very big difference.”

It was the fourth such distribution for the volunteer-run collective, which hopes to run the event four times a year.

Volunteers distributed the food from the Old Municipal Market in Circus Street, Brighton, and also delivered them to groups who could not pick-up.

Email: foodwastecollective@gmail.com for more information.