16th October 2022

Dear Friends of Foodhall,

As many of you know, this last year has been especially challenging for the project. In August, a large grant we were reliant on to pay salaries ended  - meaning our staff team reduced in size. Since then, dwindling financial resources meant we were unable to guarantee salaried positions for our core project (not including Food Delivery Project) beyond the end of November. We now have a very small team of 3 people working part time, which is not enough to support the current scope and scale of Foodhall. 

On top of these stresses, we occupy a large building which needs a considerable amount of care and experience to keep it running. While we love our home it has become increasingly difficult to manage a large sprawling space which needs various fixes to it to make it suitable and safe for use. With less and less staff to support this, it has become overwhelming for us to manage alone. On top of this we face the same hikes to our energy bills as everyone else, these are impossible for us to keep up with. 

Despite our efforts to mitigate both these sets of issues, such as applying to various new sources of funding, we have been unable to find sufficient solutions. 

Therefore, with a huge tear in our eye, we have taken the decision to close Foodhall as an event and public space from November 6th. Our last Foodhall Cafe day in the current building will be Friday 4th November. 

Our small staff team of 3 will be staying until the end of November, to help make sure we wrap the Brown Street project up with care and respect, as well as supporting those who need it to find help or space elsewhere. We are also exploring possibilities for partnerships, where we might be able to run our activities elsewhere or share our building space with other like minded organisations - we’re very keen to hear from people who might be able to help us. 

We know for many this will be incredibly sad. We also know what massive amounts of effort have gone into Foodhall over the years since 2015 (!!!). We’ve travelled far from our first days on The Moor serving out bashed bananas and soup; our days in Eyre Street, where we got real cutlery and partied long into the nights; the days of first lockdowns, when we turned our small cafe into a emergency food distribution centre in two weeks and fed 15,000 meals to people across the city; to our recent times on Brown Street, finding our feet again in this new post-covid world where the external crises never seem to stop landing. 

Thank you to you, for all you’ve contributed to make Foodhall what it is. 

These last 7 years have been an incredible journey, with Foodhall and it’s community evolving and adapting according to who joined in and what we all needed Foodhall to be. Whilst we want to give space to the disappointment or sadness people may be feeling, we are quietly hopeful for what this break can bring. We see this as an ending, but not The End. 

Our priorities for the immediate future include ensuring that these last two weeks are testament to what Foodhall is, while closing down aspects of our operations and finding homes for the groups, branch projects and things which call Foodhall home. We will also make it possible for Foodhall to run its annual community celebration on Christmas Day, details to be announced very soon. 

We want to emphasise that the Foodhall Delivery Project continues, and finding a new kitchen space for this part of our work will be our focus. 

We would love to see as many of you as we can in the next few weeks. So pop down, we’ll put on a brew and reminisce over the last 7 years. Maybe even indulge a dream for the future. 

Warmly and in solidarity, 

Alyce, Carissa, Jim 

Volunteer Non-Executive Directors 

P.S. Foodhall-ers past and present are getting together to arrange a celebration before we close. Keep your eyes peeled on social media and the FH newsletter for more news coming soon. 

The Food Delivery Project will continue running as usual. Please follow the link below for more information.