Our history

  • Our founders

Oxford Food Hub was originally founded as Oxford Food Bank in 2009. Our founders David Cairns and Robin Aitken were concerned by the level of food waste in the supply chain, and decided to try to match up surplus food with charities that could make use of it.

The first store they contacted was Sainsbury’s in Kidlington, where the manager said, “I’ve been waiting for someone like you to do this as the waste is appalling”. They started the next day, loading their own cars with food that had been destined for waste, drove it to a local Park & Ride and redistributed it into boxes which they delivered to 5 charities.

In the early days they were operating 3 hours per day, collecting about £500 of food per week (£26,000 per year). Today we operate 6 days a week with a team of over 100 volunteers and 7 members of staff (3 P/T), and last year we distributed an estimated £1.5m worth of food to local charities. This expansion was overseen by Cathy Howard, the manager of the Oxford Food Hub between 2017 and 2022. Cathy, who started off as a volunteer in 2011, was also instrumental in successfully navigating the charity through the various Covid-19 lockdowns, enabling the organisation to remain open throughout, apart from a short 2-week closure.

David and Robin were named MBEs for their services to vulnerable people in June 2014. From 2016-18 they helped to set up and oversee the creation of a new charity in London. The Felix Project operates on the same model as Oxford Food Hub and delivered the equivalent of 21.1 million meals in 2020. In 2018 Oxford Food Bank received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service, the highest award given to volunteer-led charities and in 2025 we were awarded two Climate Awards by the Oxford Mail in conjunction with Oxford City Council.