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More surplus food will be available at ten separate locations across the south thanks to a £40,000 donation from Southern Co-op.
23.
September
2022.
More locations launched to save food waste in local communities
23 September 2022
More locations launched to save food waste in local communities
More surplus food will be available at ten separate locations across the south thanks to a £40,000 donation from Southern Co-op.
With community fridges already open to the public in Brighton, Basingstoke, Chichester, and Uckfield, three more are planned for Hayling Island, Adur and Worthing, and three are still to be confirmed.
The regional co-operative, which operates end of life services branches, retail stores and coffee shops, is supporting the community fridges via Hubbub as another way to reduce food waste and tackle food insecurity in local communities.
The fridges work on an honesty basis and are usually housed in publicly accessible places, making surplus food freely available to members of the public. Surplus perishable food is donated by local businesses, charities such as FareShare or members of the public and then made available for all. The fridges are available for anyone to use.
Catherine Waters-Clark, Founder & CEO of Inspero which operates a community food pantry and fridge in Kempshott Village Hall, Basingstoke, said: “Inspero is implementing a Community Fridge to complement its existing community shop to support people impacted by the cost of living crisis.
“This means that we turn around two to three tonnes of surplus food each week, some of this can be frozen as well as fruit and vegetable produce from our charity community garden for the public’s benefit.
“If produce has gone too far, we compost it to make it into compost tea and manure for the plants at the community garden. It is a great extra facility to have in place and means less food goes into landfill and access to good food is available to support vulnerable older people and families struggling.”
Sophie Downard-Hough, Community Fridge Coordinator at BELTA (Bristol Estate landholder and tenant association) which opened its fridge in August, said: “We work alongside the kitchen that is run by Sussex Surplus Tuesday-Thursday, so we stock our fridge/shelves with meals and products that we make for a café that Sussex Surplus run on Thursdays, which also happens to be when we get the most people in using the fridge.
“The feedback we've got so far from locals that use the fridge has been nothing short of positive, it's been a real help to the residents that live on the estate as we are based in a fairly deprived area of Brighton.”
Other existing community fridges supported by Southern Co-op are in in Uckfield which opened in February and in Chichester run by Chichester Community Development Trust which opened in January.
Clare de Bathe, Trust Director for Chichester Community Development Trust, said: “Thanks to the support of Southern Co-op we have been able to support families and individuals in our locality as from further afield. The effect of COVID, the cost of living crisis and rising unemployment and prices has meant that the support provided has never been more important.”
Other community fridges supported by Southern Co-op which are not yet open are Hayling Island Community Centre Association CIO, SHOUT Worthing Soup Kitchen and The EYE Project which is working to bring a community fridge to a Worthing school.
Tania Jones, Outreach Worker for Hayling Island Community Centre CIO, said: “We have seen a sharp increase in numbers of households needing support through our community pantry, and the community fridge will be an essential service. We are striving to reduce any food waste too and this scheme will ensure food is shared and recycled in a safe way.”
Khristna McCormack on behalf of SHOUT Worthing Soup Kitchen, said: “We are all looking forward to our community fridge opening up later this year. We cannot wait until it opens.”
Camila Frost, Project Manager for Worthing and Adur EYE Project, said: “Students will be invited to volunteer and run the fridge with staff support, giving them valuable experience and skills. Whilst young people represent 20% of our population, they’re 100% of our future and the EYE supports and equips young eco leads to take climate change action within their local communities.”
The Community Fridge Network, which is hosted by Hubbub, estimated that in 2021 its network stopped 3,150 tonnes of food going to waste and shared 7,500,000 meals worth of food. There are currently more than 350 fridges across the UK.
Holly Bramble, Community Lead at Southern Co-op, said: “Whilst we already make sure all of the food from our stores gets eaten or processed into biogas, it’s just as important that we enable communities to also reduce their own food waste.
“These fridges bring together people from the local area and can be the spark to building the local community spirit. They are often run by volunteers who share our passion for sustainability, so it is has been wonderful getting to meet some of those involved.”
Southern Co-op has recently rolled out initiatives designed to save food that has gone past its best before date – either by reducing it to 20p or donating it to local good causes. All of its stores also offer Too Good To Go - the world’s largest surplus food app that lets users rescue ‘Magic Bags’.
To find out more about community fridges, visit www.hubbub.org.uk/the-community-fridge. Or for more information on Southern Co-op’s sustainable targets, visit https://southern.coop/how-we-do-it/sustainability.