Moscow, 26 January 2022 – X5 Group, a leading Russian food retailer, and Foodbank Rus announce the results of the Basket of Kindness project for 2021. As part of a charitable campaign for the benefit of the underprivileged held at X5 stores, online at корзинадоброты.рф and through X5’s own shipments and those of the Pyaterochka and Perekrestok retail chains, we managed to collect 355.7 tonnes of food, a 33% increase over the 2020 result.
The Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores that hosted food charity events for people in need collected 218.5 tonnes of food. Around 22.6 tonnes of food was purchased using donations collected at корзинадоброты.рф. X5 donated another 114.6 tonnes of food at its own expense, including 36.5 tonnes supplied to 40 hospitals in 10 regions to support healthcare personnel.
In 2021, Baskets of Kindness were handed over to 184,923 people, including children; elderly, disadvantaged and vulnerable residents; and medical practitioners. The project received donations from 140,000 customers of 3,769 Pyaterochka and Perekrestok stores in 76 cities and 14 towns across the country. Some 8,088 volunteers from Foodbank Rus and 1,729 employees of the retail chains took part in organising the charitable campaigns and food drives.
In addition, the Basket of Kindness project helped support animal shelters: some 28.4 tonnes of pet food was provided for 12,700 dogs and cats at 13 shelters in Moscow and the Moscow region, Rostov-on-Don, Kazan, Volgograd, Samara and other regions.
In 2021, X5 Group launched a new assistance project in the form of food cards. A total of 2,940 families[1] from 15 cities received cards for shopping at Perekrestok stores, with Foodbank Rus crediting RUB 1,000 to these cards each month.
X5 Group and Foodbank Rus launched the Basket of Kindness project in 2015. X5 pioneered food drives among Russian retailers, creating and promoting local food aid infrastructure. This enables customers to buy and donate food in-store to support people in need in their local communities. The project has also operated an online charity store at корзинадоброты.рф since November 2017. Last year, it collected more than 7,500 donations. In total, over 1,000 tonnes of food has been delivered through the project to disadvantaged people since 2015.
The average cost of one Basket of Kindness is RUB 619.5, with the food in it weighing over 6 kg. In 2021, X5 assessed the effectiveness of the social programme to find out the project’s impact on the recipients. On average, families receive benefits amounting to RUB 445, or 3.9% of their monthly food consumption, while assistance provided to pensioners accounts for 2.8% of their average monthly income. The Basket of Kindness programme is an important element of support for 20% of the poorest Russian families (11 million households): it covers 4.2% of their average monthly food spending.
[1] People from Petrozavodsk, Vladimir, Ryazan, Ivanovo, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Taganrog, Novocherkassk, Azov, Krasnodar, Pskov, St Petersburg, Gatchina, Chelyabinsk and Temryuk were supported by Foodbank Rus.