STUDENT entrepreneurs in Southampton have been awarded £5,000 of funding for a food distributing project to help the homeless during the coronavirus crisis.

A group of students from Southampton University were awarded the money by Ford as part of the "Ford Fund" for their "Future Brew" project.

The Future Brew project was founded by the students in April 2019 to tackle food waste, and they started collecting waste products such as bread to turn it into beer.

But in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis, they have adapted their project to collect other surplus produce such as fruit and vegetables from local supermarkets, which they distribute to homeless shelters and a local community shop.

Debbie Chennells, Ford Fund Manager in Europe, added: “The Ford Fund is honoured to support the student-led social enterprises, such as Future Brew, who are worthy winners of this COVID-19 challenge. To see how these enterprises have quickly and creatively adapted to support the local community during this pandemic is incredible. We can’t thank them enough.”

Working with its global partner Enactus, the Ford Fund COVID-19 College Challenge, an offshoot of the signature programme Ford College Community Challenge, asked student-led teams to submit proposals for how they would address pressing needs faced by their local communities in the wake of the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic.