Bags of food supplies arranged outside Farm Direct Shop, ready for collection by those in need. — Photo by Roystein Emmor
KUCHING (June 22): Local social enterprise Farm Direct Shop has set up its own food bank as a way to help individuals who have been adversely affected by the Movement Control Order (MCO), enforced due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Under its ‘Free Food Pantry’ initiative, the needy folk can come to the shop at Stutong Avenue along Jalan Setia Raja here, and take the food supplies from the cabinet and also the fridge placed outside the premises.
An observation from The Borneo Post this afternoon discovered that the ‘pantry’ at Farm Direct Shop was stocked food items such as rice, sugar, canned food, noodles and eggs – all already packed in plastics bags.
People began lining up at around 4pm, taking turns to receive the food supplies.
Alan Wei.
Farm Direct Shop director Alan Wei said the ‘Free Food Pantry’ programme received overwhelming response almost instantaneously after its announcement on the business’ Facebook page last Saturday.
He said because of this, the shop after that would only allow individuals to collect the food supplies from 4pm to 5pm daily, or until the arranged supplies had been cleared for the day.
“The first few days had been OK, but then, we started to see crowds of people building up.
“We later decided to set a curfew of sort – as a result, they would only be here from 4pm to 5pm.
“The rest of the time, we would give time for the suppliers to donate (food supplies) so that we could prepare the goods before giving away the donations,” he told The Borneo Post when met yesterday.
Wei’s employees help distribute the food supplies. — Photo by Roystein Emmor
Wei said apart from suppliers, the food items were also donated by his friends as well as many kind-hearted customers.
On the setting up of the ‘free pantry’, Wei said he was inspired by various food banks being set up around the world due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the ensuing Movement Control Order (MCO) enforcement.
Having seen more posts about food banks on Facebook, he then decided to do the same.
“Tentatively, we are doing this until the end of the current MCO on June 28. If it’s extended again, we would consider extending this programme also – provided that the supplies would still be there.
“If people continued to give (donations), we would also continue this initiative,” he said.
Wei added that apart from food donations, he said his shop had also received monetary donations, of which the funds would be used to purchase more food supplies and items.
Having been in business since November 2019, the Farm Direct Shop is a social enterprise where local farmers, homemakers or gardeners can bring in their produce or items to sell at the shop.
According to Wei, the shop would only keep 20 per cent of the sales, while the remaining 80 per cent would be given to the contributing farmers, homemakers or gardeners.
“We welcome all local farmers, homemakers, gardeners or anyone who have local produce or items to come to Farm Direct Shop and sell their items to us,” added Wei.