Chippy matches pay it forward donations

An Aylesbury fish and chip shop has introduced a pay it forward scheme and promised to match every single meal donated.

The Codfather, which has two takeaways in the market town, launched the initiative last week, enabling customers to pay for a meal in advance for someone in the local community in need.

It has teamed up with the local food bank and will be issuing vouchers to be distributed to those that need help the most so they can enjoy a hot meal. In addition, the generous chippy has promised it will match every single donation made until the end of May.

Juliano Brito, who owns the takeaways with his business partner Matthew Marks, comments: “We wanted to give something back to the community as a whole. There are so many people out there struggling at this time, who aren’t bringing in the wages they normally do. Even food banks are struggling to keep up with demand.

“We spoke to the local food bank about running a pay it forward scheme, because that way everyone can play a part and chip in and we will match every single donation.

“We do a lot for our local community, we’ve donated to the Florence Nightingale Hospice, we support quiz nights and raffles and we’ve helped mental health charity Mind, but this is by far the biggest initiative we’ve done so far.

“If we get 100 fish and chips we’ll match it and that means 200 people are able to come in and have a treat from their local chippy.”

The initiative went live just five days ago and has already had 40 meals paid for.

“That’s 80 meals going to families in need,” adds Juliano. “If we can donate a couple of hundred meals to the food bank that will be amazing.”

Customers simply need to pop into the shop - which has social distancing measures in place and is only allowing two people in at a time - and buy a meal forward. The receipt will be saved and matched at the end of the week.