The charity Springboard has launched a £500,000 appeal to raise funding for food and drink manufacturers, wholesalers, and distributors in order to support disadvantaged people when the hospitality industry comes out of the Covid-19 crisis.

A letter has been sent to 90 of the UK’s biggest food businesses asking them to donate either £25,000, £10,000, or £5,000 to partner with the campaign.

The letter was signed by Alastair Storey, chairman and chief executive of WSH Holdings and chairman of Springboard; Andrew Selley, chief executive of Bidfood; Charles Wilson, chief executive of Booker Group; Hugo Mahoney, chief executive of Brakes; and Chris Gamm, editor of The Caterer.

Anne Pierce, Springboard chief executive, said 100 per cent of the funds raised will be used to continue Springboard’s work supporting young people and unemployed or disadvantaged adults through the current pandemic so that they are ready for employment in hospitality when the restaurant industry re-emerges.

“Springboard urgently needs funding to support current trainees and recent graduates of our programmes who need help at this time,” said Pierce.

“We also need to support potentially thousands more young people and those from challenging backgrounds to get started on their career, nurturing them into employment over the next few months. We will do this with Springboard’s more than 40 online training modules, including skills, resilience and wellbeing, as well as live and pre-recorded webinars, one-to-one support via phone, email and messaging, mentoring, advice and guidance.”