Community Fridge

Today I visited our local Community Fridge for the first time.  This is run by a local Community Enterprise, run by volunteers who are passionate about keeping food (and other things - I'll post about the paint hub another day) out of landfill and looking after the community.  At the end of each day they go around the supermarkets and collect food which would otherwise be thrown away because it's at the end of it's shelf life.  Every morning at 10am, they give it out in return for a £1 donation.

I decided this warranted further investigation, so this morning I took the wiggly dog for a walk down to the community fridge venue.  

There was a queue outside the building, so I tied the dog to a post, and joined the back of the queue, which was made up of 18 people.  They were an interesting mix: young and old, with children and without, well-off and not so well off.  A lady came around exchanging a ticket for each £1.  Once everybody had one, she offered a second ticket (one ticket = 1 basket) to anybody that wanted one for another £1.

Then the queue began to slowly move forwards.  The ladies brought out baskets that had already been sorted.  They share out the food evenly into the baskets before you arrive so you don't end up with the people at the front of the queue grabbing all the good stuff.  Then you pack your basket into your bag.  They also give a choice of white bread or brown bread, veggie or meat, and if they have lots of something, you can take as much as you want (in this case - bread rolls and past their best bananas).  The lady in front of me explained that the numbers today were about average, and that what you get each time is a bit of a lottery, but it usually contains fruit and veg and bread.  She said sometimes you get a bit less, and sometimes a bit more - depending how many people are queueing and how much has been donated by the supermarkets.

I was amazed by how much I got - and soon realised that if I was coming back I needed a bigger bag (the lady in front had a spare thank goodness!) and should definitely bring the car.  I came home with two loaves of bread and three packs of bread rolls, cherry tomatoes, salad tomatoes, a pepper, 2 punnets of strawberries, 2 figs, a satsuma, some apples, slightly past their best bananas, green beans, salad, parsnips, carrots and potatoes.  A veritable haul of freshness and all for just £1!  

When I got home, my first job was to hull the strawberries and chop the bananas and chuck them in a bag in the freezer so they are ready for Miss Busy to whizz into smoothies whenever she wants one.  I then chose which bread to put in the bread bin and which bread to put in the freezer.  Everything else went in the fridge but has helped me determine what to cook over the coming days.  Some batch cooked sauces and things like that seem a good bet.

I am delighted with this find.  Not only will it save money on the groceries, but it's making good use of food that would almost certainly end up in landfill.  It also benefits those in the community who really need that help with the cost of food - they do also have a weekly "food club" (food bank) with donated non-perishables which gets given to those who need it in addition to the fresh food.

Bravo to Remake: Cornwall!