Submitted by Lucy Atherton.
Catering company Somerset Larder is to supply meals to NHS workers in the county, in order to help support them through the coronavirus emergency. The Bridgwater based company is sending 3,000 meals a week to the Somerset NHS Health Foundation Trust, which includes Musgrove Park Hospital and 30 other community hospitals and medical facilities. They will be distributed three times a day to all staff, including to care workers who have to travel to patients’ homes.
Somerset Larder’s Managing Director Steve Braithwaite said: “We were aware that many food shop concessions have closed in hospitals and that it has become increasingly difficult for staff to get healthy regular meals, particularly when they are on long shifts. We want to do everything we can to keep NHS workers well and supported, so we offered to supply easily portable breakfasts, lunches and dinners. We only need to cover our costs to do this, in order to buy the food and pay our staff to prepare it, and the NHS will hand out the meals for free.
“Somerset Larder uses locally sourced produce where possible, so this also has the added benefit that we are helping to keep farmers and food manufacturers in business. We are very proud to be part of the essential services during this difficult period, supplying food to our region.”
The company is also sending 500 free meals a week to the charity Fare Share South West, to be distributed to the vulnerable in the county. Somerset Larder was established in 2014 to supply food to workers at Hinkley Point C, but now also caters for other large businesses in the region, with everything from meals-to-go to corporate personal fine dining.
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