Leading UK food retailers join forces in Tanzania charity trek for Farm Africa

30 August 2013

Corporate leaders to endure searing heat in 6 day, 145 kilometre trek across Great Rift Valley

A crack team of corporate leaders from across the UK food industry is to trek across some of the world’s wildest and most uncharted landscapes to raise funds for Farm Africa, a leading UK charity tackling hunger in eastern Africa.

The Tanzania Highland Challenge has brought together senior executives from some of the UK’s biggest food retailers, including Waitrose, Marks and Spencer’s and Tesco.

They will set out next month in sweltering temperatures to trek for six days along a route that until now has only been walked by local Masai tribesmen and wildlife. The 145 kilometres trek through the Tanzanian Highlands will push the team to its limits, exposing them to one of the world’s harshest environments. They will climb steep scarp slopes and extinct volcanoes and trek through untamed landscapes alongside wildlife in a region of the Great Rift Valley that is more volcanic than any other in Africa. After trekking for up to eight hours a day under a scorching African sun, the team will sleep each night on the path under canvas.

The trekking team

Tony Baines, Managing Director Buying, Aldi

Richard Brasher, Chief Executive Officer, Pick ‘n’ Pay

Andrew Cracknell, Commercial Director, Anglo Beef Processors

Nigel Dunlop, Chief Executive Officer, Moy Park

Steve Ellwood, Non-Executive Director, AH Worth, EFFP

Robert Lasseter, Chairman, NFU South West Regional Board

Richard Macdonald, Non-Executive Director, Moy Park, Dairy Crest

Julian Marks, Managing Director, Barfoots

Steve McLean, Head of Agriculture & Fisheries, Marks and Spencer

Keith Packer, Chief Executive Officer, Typhoo Tea

Charles Reed, Group Managing Director, William Reed Business Media

Tim Smith, Group Technical Director, Tesco

Andrew Thompson, Commercial Director, Booker

Mark Williamson, Commercial Director, Waitrose

All money raised to go to Farm Africa’s Food for Good campaign

The team has been assembled in response to Farm Africa’s Food for Good initiative, a series of innovative partnerships which the UK food and hospitality sectors have put together to benefit the charity.  The scheme’s purpose is to bring together the fundraising firepower and business know-how of some of the highest profile personalities and companies in the UK food and hospitality industries to tackle one of the greatest challenges facing the planet: hunger.

Food for Good was started in 2011 when a similar team of leading executives from the food industry climbed to the peak of Africa’s highest mountain, Mount Kilimanjaro, whose summit stands at 5,895 metres above sea level. They raised more than £250,000 in the process for Farm Africa.

The campaign has rapidly gained momentum and in 2013 alone, Food for Good has raised over £300,000 with participants in next month’s Tanzania Highland Challenge aiming to increase that figure significantly.

This year has witnessed an intensification of Food for Good activities. In April, 14 senior women executives from the food industry including Rosie Boycott and Sainsbury’s Director of Brand, Judith Batchelar, travelled to a remote corner of rural Kenya to help build a huge fish pond that will be a lasting source of food and income for the local community. And a team of leading British chefs led by Heston Blumenthal’s number two, Ashley Palmer-Watts, has almost reached the summit of Kilimanjaro in a Food for Good fundraising climb.

Looking forward to the event, the team’s leader and former NFU Director-General Richard Macdonald said:

“Trekking 145 kilometres in searing heat in SIX days at altitude

across some of the planet’s most untamed landscapes will be

unbelievably tough. But the scale of the challenge underlines

our determination to support Food for Good which is promoting

global food sustainability. And as food industry leaders we

understand just how important that is for us all.”

Ends

Images of the trek will available on request.

For more information, and to arrange interviews with members of the trekking team, please contact the Farm Africa Press Office:

Matt Whitticase, 020 7067 1237 / mattheww@farmafrica.org

Laura Oakley,    020 7067 1252 /laurao@farmafrica.org

Notes to Editor:

About Farm Africa

Farm Africa supports farmers living at subsistence level, constantly at risk of crop failure, to build food and income security so that they can grow a better and reliable future for their families.

By focusing on ‘climate smart’ agricultural and forestry techniques, building market links and adding value to production, Farm Africa unleashes the entrepreneurial abilities of the farmers and rural communities they work with.

This is the time to turn challenge into opportunity for African farmers. Farm Africa believes passionately that smallholders can and will play a key role in achieving rural prosperity in Africa.

Food for Good

The Chefs’ Kilimanjaro Challenge is part of Food for Good, a Farm Africa initiative that is bringing together the food and hospitality industry to tackle one of the biggest challenges facing the world today: hunger. You can find out more about Food for Good here: www.farmafrica.org/foodforgood

In addition, Farm Africa is the chosen charity for The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Awards 2013, sponsored by San Pellegrino and Acqua Panna.