“They genuinely care”(Image: Manchester Evening News)

A food bank is launching Deliveroo-style service where customers can order groceries online in postcode areas Mancs usually associate with affluence.

Perry’s Pantry, a food bank in Chorlton, has launched a pilot where house-bound regulars can get food, toiletries, and household essentials of their choice delivered to their front door every week.

Initially open to disabled and elderly people, registered users could receive a video showing the shop shelves via WhatsApp, and then phone up a food bank volunteer to tell them what they’d like in their package. Alternatively, they can video call a volunteer who will shop directly from the shelves live.

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“The reason we thought of doing it as one of our customers was poorly, and she sent her son in. He did the shopping with her on a video call on his phone,” volunteer Sue Trotter told the Local Democracy Reporting Service. “We thought it was a pretty good way of carrying on.”

The pilot will run for 10 weeks and only cover the M20 and M21 postcodes — home to sought-after suburbs of Didsbury, Chorlton, and Withington which many Mancs dream of calling home one day.

However, those suburbs also contain large social housing estates where poverty is prevalent, including Perry’s Pantry’s home the Merseybank estate, and the Hassel estate in Withington.

Trustee Iyinka Abibi said: “We deliver to private houses as well, there are a lot of people who have lost jobs. But around here they are all social houses, they go all the way to Fletcher Moss Park [two miles away].”

(Image: Manchester Evening News)

For the pilot to become a year-round initiative, the charity will need between £12,000 and £15,000 annually. The charity hopes to achieve that with more funding from big organisations after housing associations Mossacre St Vincent’s and Southway, and supermarkets Sainsbury’s and Co-op, chipped in to get the pilot off the ground.

“Every time you go to the Co-op and spend £5, you can vote for a charity to benefit,” Ms Abibi explained. “We need people to vote for us and depending on that vote we could get anything from £500 to £5,000.”

The pilot also received the baking of Lord Mayor Coun Carmine Grimshaw, who visited the food bank on Thursday (August 14). He said: “It will benefit older people. I was delivering food in lockdown myself, in that situation if you have a disability it’s a big thing.

“You can tell they will not just drop the bag at the door, you can see what the people are like. They genuinely care. We’re all about that, but often we do not have the time to be. It will be quite beneficial. It will be a big thing.”