Marks & Spencer food director George Wright to head up Fareshare
Fareshare, the UK’s biggest charity fighting hunger and food waste, has appointed George Wright, Marks & Spencer’s commercial director for food, as its new chief executive.
Due to join the charity this summer, Wright has over 30 years’ retail and food experience following senior commercial roles at Tesco, John Lewis, and Coles in Australia. Having worked at Marks & Spencer for almost four years, he has led the food trading, supply chain and logistics teams through Covid, Brexit and a number of successful Christmases.
He will succeed current chief executive Lindsay Boswell who is leaving FareShare in July after 13 years. In 2022, the charity redistributed 128 million meals worth of food to 9,500 charities in communities across the UK.
FareShare chair John Bason said: “I am delighted to welcome George to FareShare. He brings a deep understanding of the food industry along with a wealth of experience of running the logistic networks of food supply. He has a great desire to make a difference to people’s lives. FareShare has so much to achieve in the coming years to meet the increasing need by charities for the food to support the most vulnerable in society.”
Wright said: “The outstanding commitment of my colleagues in the FareShare network to delivering surplus food to those who need it most is an inspiration to us all, and I can’t tell you how excited I am that John and the trustees have chosen me to support everyone in that purpose.
“I’m also really looking forward to working with our partners across all parts of the food sector and government alike. By continuing to pull together, we can build on Lindsay’s fantastic legacy and take surplus food redistribution to even greater levels, supporting families for whom the cost of living crisis is exactly that – a crisis. I’m determined to ensure that, as an industry we can address that head-on.”
Wright will lead FareShare as it builds on its ambitious growth plans and will also continue the charity’s campaign to reinstate government funding towards getting food on UK farms to people most impacted by the cost of living crisis instead of letting it go to waste.
