Osgood Smith, the Colchester confectionery wholesaler founded in 1921, has permanently closed. Colchester Foodbank is buying its Greenstead Road depot.
Colchester City Council has named the three organisations it is funding through its Voluntary Welfare Grant Programme this year, and one of the awards is not paying for a service at all. It is helping a charity buy a building. (Colchester City Council, Voluntary Welfare Grant strengthens services across Colchester)
The council said one of the largest allocations went to Colchester Foodbank, to support the acquisition of its permanent site, the former premises of wholesale confectioners Osgood Smith on Greenstead Road. The foodbank’s co-director, Nikki Ranson, called it “a significant milestone for the charity and the tens of thousands who rely on our services each year”, and said a permanent base would let it offer “not only emergency food but also a welcoming hub for advice, practical help and essential services”.
The scale behind that phrase is worth stating. The charity describes itself as the busiest foodbank in Essex and the second busiest in the East of England, and says over a third of the people it helps are children. Its locations page lists centres scattered across the city, from 3 Tollgate Retail Park at Stanway to Mile End Road and Canterbury Road, each with its own opening hours. The council’s wording is that the grant supports “the acquisition of its permanent site”, so this is capital help towards a building rather than money for running one.
Who Osgood Smith were, and why the building is free
The name on the deeds will mean more to Colchester than the address does. Osgood Smith was a wholesale confectionery and tobacco business founded in Colchester in 1921, trading out of a warehouse in Queen Street until the constant lorry movements made the town centre unworkable. In 1952 it moved to a purpose-built depot on Greenstead Road, with houses alongside it and deliberate room to expand, and from there it ran deliveries out to Clacton, Harwich, Ipswich and Chelmsford.
James Osgood Smith and Fred Ansell ran it from that move. The company was sold to Trebor in the 1970s to keep it going, though a dispute over the property led to Mr Smith buying the premises back; Trebor handled distribution until 1979 and contracts ran on to 1983. Michael and Margaret Smith took over in 1988, and the Greenstead Road depot was enlarged again in 1998 as the product range grew (Osgood Smith).
The firm’s own website now carries a single line: “Osgood Smith is now permanently closed.” (Osgood Smith). That is what has put a large, purpose-built warehouse with loading space and parking onto the market in a part of Colchester where the foodbank already works, and it is why the council’s grant is buying a building rather than paying for a service.
The other two awards
Citizens Advice Colchester was funded for advice work across housing, benefits, debt and relationship issues. Its chief officer, Bev Perkins, said the money had helped advisers deliver “life-changing financial gains and preventing problems from escalating into crisis”.
Open Road Colchester was funded for the SOS Bus, which the council describes as working in the night-time economy and at community events. Open Road’s welfare and volunteer manager, Stacey Banner, said the funding let the charity “expand our vital SOS Bus operation, assist with staffing, and sustain our peer support programmes”.
The detail the announcement buries
Two things in the council’s own wording are worth pulling out.
The first is a change of policy. “Unlike past years, the allocations for 2026-27 are made on a one-year basis,” the council said, and gave its reason: “the rapidly changing landscape facing the voluntary and community sector, alongside wider system changes across local government and health partners.” For a charity, a single year of funding is a different thing from a multi-year settlement. It pays for the work but not for planning ahead, and it makes hiring and lease decisions harder to justify.
The second is what is not there. The council named the three organisations and called one allocation “one of the largest”, but the announcement carries no amounts, no total for the fund, and no note of how many organisations applied. As it stands, a resident can see who was funded but not how much any of them received, or how large “one of the largest” is.
Cllr David King, deputy leader and portfolio holder for communities and public protection, said the fund “helps them deliver vital services that improve quality of life, promote health and wellbeing, tackle inequalities, and strengthen community resilience”.
What it means for you
If you need the foodbank, referral is still by voucher, and the charity’s how to get help page lists the agencies that can issue one. The Greenstead Road move does not change where you collect today; the sites on the charity’s own locations page are the ones to use.
If you need advice on debt, benefits or housing, Citizens Advice Colchester is the service the council has funded for exactly that, and it is also one of the agencies that can issue a foodbank voucher.
If you follow what happens to the Greenstead Road site, the council has not said whether the building needs consent for a change of use. If an application is made, it will show up in the Colchester planning news record.
If you are looking for Osgood Smith, the wholesaler has shut for good. Its own site says so in one line, and after 105 years the Greenstead Road depot is being sold on rather than reopened.
If you run a small Colchester charity, note the one-year rule. Any bid you build around this fund for 2026-27 has to stand up without an assumption that it repeats in 2027-28, and the council has said openly that the wider funding landscape is changing.
And if you want to know the amounts, they are not published. The council’s decisions and its councillors are listed through its committee and councillor pages, which is where a request for the allocation figures would start.
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