Deloitte back Edinburgh RBS foodbank appeal

Thousands of meals paid for

Kent MacKenzie is a partner in Deloitte and on the board of Social Bite

THE RBS foodbank appeal - which saw the bank set up a distribution centre at its Gogarburn headquarters - has won support from one of the world’s biggest accountancy firms.

Deloitte has donated money to pay for thousands of meals and offered logistical support.

Kent MacKenzie, an Edinburgh-based partner in Deloitte, is also a “massively proud” trustee and board member of poverty charity Social Bite, which is one of the partners in the RBS appeal, which is also backed by the Evening News.

And he is involved in Deloitte’s One Million Futures programme which supports a number of charities including Social Bite and the Trussell Trust, another appeal partner.

Mr MacKenzie said: “I have a huge passion about working with the community quite practically. With Covid and the situation we find ourselves in, the need to provide support to these communities and groups is even more acute.”

He said he had been working closely with Social Bite founder Josh Littlejohn on development of the charity.

”Within hours - if not minutes - of Covid landing on our doorstep Josh’s mind was turning to ‘How do I pivot this business to respond to this dire situation?’

“And RBS has this fantastic effort under way at Gogarburn. Full kudos to Josh and RBS for pioneering this.”I was very keen to do what we needed to do to help make this happen.

”We put quite a significant donation forward, which will result in over 8,500 meals being provided through this network.

“We also have real strength in people able to provide support and expertise so when it gets to the point where they need logistical help or supply chain help we’ve got experts coming out of our ears.

”And we’re having a lot of conversations with our clients to pass this on. There is a call to arms here and that has gone out through our networks.”