Our story

Our story

Our foodbank project was founded by local churches and community groups coming together to combat hunger in our local area in 2011. We initially set up as Chesham Foodbank, operating out of the small annexe at St.Mary’s Church Chesham. It became apparent that we were serving a far wider community than Chesham alone. So, in 2012 we changed our name to Chiltern Foodbank and registered as an independent charity. In the same year we established distribution centres in Little Chalfont and Amersham, followed by a further centre in Wendover in 2013.

In 2014, having outgrown the annexe, we moved to our present premises in Chesham Broadway. From here we supply all of our distribution centres with readymade food parcels.

In 2019 a further distribution centre was opened in Prestwood in order to improve food access to those in the HP16 area. A year later a further centre was opened at Gold Hill Baptist Church in Chalfont St Peter, to serve the St Peter, St Giles, Chalfont Common, Denham and Gerrards Cross areas.

During the pandemic we changed our operating model in 2020, and started providing delivery services using a team of volunteer drivers. We have continued with this model to this day, with food parcels delivered directly to the homes of people in need.

The ongoing pandemic impact, cost of living crisis and numerous other factors meant we experienced a marked increase in demand for food parcels. So, in 2021 we refreshed our strategy to ensure it spoke to the challenges of the day. One of these is enabling our clients to get fast track access to caseworker support for benefits reviews and debt action plans. This updated preventative focus included, providing grants to other agencies to help our clients get back on their feet, and collaborations with our partners to reduce the need for people to continue to rely on food parcels. We have witnessed good results from these approaches, but with so many societal challenges remaining, there is always so much to do.

Fast forward to 2025, we now employ one part time CEO, and two part time foodbank co-ordinators. We work with a host of referral partners and external local bodies, and continue our tireless efforts to support local people experiencing food poverty. We hope that one day our overarching strategic objective will be realised, when there is no longer a need for the existence of foodbanks within our local community.