Cancelling food parcels for the vulnerable

JDPower

Anyone know how to do this? I signed up to the vulnerable service because I couldn't get delivery slots with any supermarkets. As a result I have been offered priority/repeated slots with Asda, but have also now received a food parcel. I have a bowel disease which means I have a very limited diet, so not only is most of the stuff in the parcel of no use, I don't need it now that I can get a delivery from a supermarket and I hate that I'm potentially taking free food that someone else might need more desperately than me.

I could go through the registration process again and say I no longer need food help, but worried that would lose the priority delivery from the supermarket putting right back at square one struggling to get food again

7Phil

I see... I probably would not jeopardise your food slots.
Is there another option - do know know who is supplying them? How are they delivered?

I'd be tempted to put a short note on your door to say you cannot use the food parcels due to dietary conditions and to skip your address if you cannot contact the supplier.

I have no doubt the food parcels will result in unwanted food being wasted so it would be good if local neighbourhoods could share them around a little bit in a safe manner.

Owain_Moneysaver

It depends where you are. In Scotland you can send a text message saying STOPBOX to the SMS service, and restart it any time with 1BOX or 2BOX if you need a food box delivered. That doesn't affect the supermarket priority slots or the vulnerable people register.
I can't what happens in England. 

TheBanker

Try sending an email to your local council - here they are the ones distributing food. 

p00hsticks

My brother has just been in a similar position, with an unwanted food box being delivered (as he is suffering from mouth cancer he is on a liquid diet via a stomach tube, and so woudn't be able to eat any of it).  He contacted his local council who had sent and they have told him that the reason it was sent is because when he registered as extremely vulnerable on the government website

https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus-extremely-vulnerable

he'd said 'no' to the question

So he's gone back in and changed it to 'yes' and apparently this should stop future food parcels. The council was able to provide him with a local contact who could arrange for his prescriptions to be delivered - it;s a shame that the website doesn't distinguish between needing food and medicine as 'essential supplies'.

calcotti

It seems that to get on to the vulnerable list for supermarket slots you need to say you have no support but if you do that they then send a food parcel. Getting help from family/friends with miscellaneous items is a different ask that someone doing your bulk shop for you every week for what is clearly going to be a long period of time.

dog_nanny

My Mum has just asked me how to cancel the food parcel.  She assumed it was a one-off last week, but got another one today. Like the OP I am loth to go through the form again in case it takes her off the list for Tesco priority delivery. I'll tell her to put a note on her front door next Tuesday and hope that does the trick.

JDPower

p00hsticks said:

So he's gone back in and changed it to 'yes' and apparently this should stop future food parcels.

Yes, but will also remove your priority shopping from the supermarkets, which was the reason I was struggling in the first place. I now have priority delivery slots from the supermarkets and can get food, so I don't NEED food parcels. If I go on the gov site and say I don't need help with food, then I'll be back at square one, needing food cos I can't get deliveries

Just seems so silly and wasteful (of people's time and resources, the food itself I'll donate to whatever food bank or charity can collect it). There are people who aren't getting these free parcels and desperately need them, yet I don't want it and can't stop them

dog_nanny

It would be helpful if the gov. form mentioned the food parcel and gave the choice to opt in or out.

JDPower

dog_nanny said:

It would be helpful if the gov. form mentioned the food parcel and gave the choice to opt in or out.

Indeed. Instead am in the bizarre position of having food delivered to me, only to have to get someone to come pick it up from me to take to someone else who actually needs it. Suddenly I'm in the food distribution business

calcotti

dog_nanny said:

It would be helpful if the gov. form mentioned the food parcel and gave the choice to opt in or out.

That would have been the obvious thing to do. I contacted my local council to see if they were involved in distributing the parcels but they said not and referred me to 111 which (not unexpectedly) knew nothing either. Fortunately I have managed to donate to food bank.