An American heiress is funding a major new food distribution centre in South Wales.
Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk, a philanthropist and founder of The Memnosyne Institute, has pledged millions of pounds to build a facility in Merthyr Tydfil to support foodbanks across the region.
The centre will help tackle food poverty by enabling the storage and distribution of large-scale food donations, including chilled and frozen goods.
Ms Thompson-Frenk said: "When we started diving down, we found out that here in the UK there is a 15 per cent food hunger rate in households across the UK.
"But then when you start to look into households where there are actual children in it, you end up going up to 20 per cent.
"Then when you come over here to Merthyr Tydfil it went up to 30 per cent."
Her charity has already redistributed $60 million worth of food in the United States.
The new centre will be equipped with walk-in refrigeration, frozen storage, and racking to accommodate bulk donations from major companies.
Ms Thompson-Frenk said: "You have companies that are very happy to donate but companies donate in mass and if you don't have a facility that can take the large numbers at one time, then there is no place for them to go."
In Merthyr Tydfil, food poverty rates are nearly double the UK average and 10 per cent higher for children.
David Solomons, director of Memnosyne UK, said the centre will address a critical gap in the foodbank supply chain.
He said: "The one thing they told us doesn't exist is a large facility which can take much larger volumes.
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"So we said we will take a unit which handles the capacity.
"We will equip it, so it is equipped for frozen food, walk-in refrigeration, shelving, racking for food and non-food items.
"We will finance it, but this is going to be a facility that will provide and empower those smaller groups that are providing food already that don't have the capacity that we will have."
Ms Thompson-Frenk, who was adopted by then-7-Eleven CEO John P. Thompson, has been dedicating her life to helping others.
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