Our impact
Every week, our Food Hub supplies surplus food to thousands of Lambeth residents who face barriers to healthy food, stable income and social connection.
Impact of the Food Hub in 2025
2,533 households supported
40+ community groups
204,238kg of food redistributed
£1.72M social value created
(£989k surplus food, £532k reduced household expenditure, £199k CO2 emissions saved)
For every £1 invested, £8 of social value is generated
PatchWorks independently evaluated our work using a co-designed approach, and produced our 2025 impact report.
What we do
The Food Hub receives surplus food donated from farms, supermarket depots and caterers, as well as purchasing food. As a fully equipped warehouse, we then distribute the food to community group partners, powering their food services (pantries and food shares) and social activities. The Food Hub also underpins Healthy Living Platform’s pantries, community activities, cooking sessions and food education.
The community group partners provide weekly, a healthy food shop at low prices, spaces for social connection and a range of support services for residents. Residents benefit from lower costs, healthier food and stronger community ties.
What does this mean?
86% say the Hub reduces food costs
People save £25–£30 per month on average
83% report improved diet
93% say it is easier to access healthy food
87% report improved wellbeing
204,238kg of food redistributed
(That’s 34 double decker busloads!)
Who the Food Hub supports
This chart shows demographic data from our 2025 impact report.
It reflects the vital role that the Food Hub and its partner community groups play for residents managing health conditions, financial precarity or insecure housing, and the importance of culturally inclusive, welcoming spaces.
Ms P’s story
Behind the stats are real people like our volunteers.
Ms P is a much-loved part of the Healthy Living Platform Pantry where she has volunteered for years.
What stands out most is the way residents talk about her. Many say they come on her days because she makes them feel welcome, respected and at ease. She laughs about it, but she knows it matters: “People follow me to whatever Pantry I’m at,” she says. “They know I’ll look after them.”
She talks about the team with affection too. The friendships, the banter, the routine of working together each week have become an important part of her life. “It feels like family here,” she says. “You never feel on your own.”
What keeps her coming back is the difference she sees in people. Helping residents choose food, checking in on them, and seeing them leave smiling gives her a deep sense of pride. “You know you’re making a difference — that’s why we do it,” she says.
Another thing she loves is watching new volunteers grow: “I like helping people find their feet. Everyone has something to give.”
For Ms P, HLP is about community, contribution and belonging. A place where she can be herself, support others and help create the kind of warm, dignified welcome she believes every resident deserves.
Bottom line
If the Food Hub did not exist, food access, community connection and wellbeing across Lambeth would be compromised.
The Hub provides essential infrastructure for Lambeth’s communities and needs protecting for the future.
Download a PDF of The Impact of the Healthy Living Platform Food Hub: A Group Covaluation Report by PatchWorks (2025) below to learn more about our impact.
More about our impact
Lambeth Early Action Partnership (LEAP) funded Healthy Living Platform activities as part of the Incredible Edible Lambeth project in 2018. Due to its success, it was then possible to establish Healthy Living Platform as an independent organisation in 2019.
This evaluation report provides evidence for how Healthy Living Platform built community capacity locally in the LEAP area, to inform Healthy Living Platform’s future work and to generate broader insights about how community-led food programmes can build community capacity.
“The pantry kind of creates a centre of gravity. So, like something around which other things kind of coalesce…”