Community larder - would you use one

[Moana987]

If you didn't need to for financial reasons?

Within a 15 minute drive I have 3 Community larders where you just go and help yourself. Sometimes they have some decent stuff in and other times its just stale bread left.

I use them now and again, when passing I may have a look but financially I dont need to use them so I feel guilty sometimes encase others need the food.

They are not food banks. They are to stop food that's perfectly fine going to waste.

Would you use one?

I volunteer with one, and its purpose is to reduce waste and prevent perfectly good surplus food going to landfill. We have a large amount of fresh food coming in every day, and there is plenty for all, whether in need, or just eco-minded. I think there are people in need who come to us who wouldn't go to a food bank, because there is no stigma to visiting us. The people in charge of the project are aware of some visitors who need extra help, and they find ways of offering them a quantity above our standard limit, or keeping the more nutritious protein or dairy items back for them.

I can afford my grocery shopping, but like any other visitor to the project, I will take some items home, too. It's tragic to see how much fruit and veg would otherwise end up in landfill.

Your post says it's not a food bank and the purposes of these places are to stop good food going to waste.
So yes on that basis I would use it.

We don't have anything like that around us anyway

I use our local one with the sole purpose of reducing food waste, and that's how it's been explained to me. Everything is perishable - there's no option for long-life stuff, and you generally need to eat it that same day. I treat it as a bit of a challenge to see what I can make (there were bags and bags of parsnips at Easter, which made great soup!).

Ours is combined with other eco initiatives (library of things, fill your own containers for soap and washing powder etc.) so I think it is genuinely an eco thing. And therefore I don't feel the need to apologise - yes, I could pay for the things I take, but if I didn't take them, they'd generally be heading for the bin...

I've used once before for food for youth groups and feel OK doing that because I have no idea when some of the kids I work with have last eaten when they come in but our budget is tiny and I don't want to have to charge them.

I probably wouldn't use one personally unless I actually financially needed to because I'd worry I was taking what might be needed by others, but equally i think if more people used them, it would take away the stigma and might make it easier for people to access them when they need them instead of feeling like it's something to be embarrassed about.

I would if there was one conveniently located to me. I hate food waste (and I'm not rich) and would happily pick up something if passing. I also make liberal use of reduced sections in the supermarket for the same reasons.

I wouldn’t use one right now because so many people are really struggling I assume they need to be prioritised.

But I guess if you go right at the end of the day, and stuff will otherwise be chucked, then fair enough

I’m a lecturer and we have (a very small) one on campus. It’s mainly things that people bring in from greenhouses or allotments, but also surplus items from the kitchens, Costa coffee shop etc which are best before that day’s date, plus odd bits like lever arch folders offices are clearing out.

If I am leaving the building and there are eg a load of carrots sitting at the back of 5, yes, I will take a bag and make them into soup. I wouldn’t pick up a panini at 2pm because I’d assume a hungry student would eat that up.

We have one but it’s nothing like a food bank and is absolutely designed to reduce food waste. Most of the fresh produce is allocated for local projects , who are given daily crates of fruit/ veg/ bread. Then what’s left over is sold, but it is a wild and wonderful array of stuff and it’s very rare indeed that’s it’s stuff that would be useful to somebody struggling in an emergency.
Things like giant catering tins of fancy sauce, or obscure Eastern European imports with no translation. More like store cupboard items that are a real gamble. Apart from the free bread, I think you’d be hard pressed to find anything substantial or simple to eat if you were simply hungry that day.
I use it a lot for my big family, as I have space to freeze crates of fruit that’s on the turn etc. But that’s how it’s sold.. By the crate or massive quantity generally.

We have one I sometines stop and have a look, grab something. Its pretty much whatever reduced stuff doesn’t sell in local Co op / bakery of stuff going off that day just generally a few bits/ bread / flowers occasionally the community run field has a glut and there will be 50 marrows or huge pile of courgettes. There’s a community orchard so crates and crates of apples in autumn.

Whilst you can’t buy stuff the local growing project / orchard has fundraiser days so you can bake or donate generously and help out that way. Individuals can also donate but I tend to put things like loo roll or tins that last a bit longer.

Brother and sil use one

They also have two expensive cars, a four bed detached house and of course, a cockapoo.

They use a food bank. Do they need to? No. But they do

There was one near us situated in a room in a church and open a few days a week when the room was also a collection point for food bank parcels; so I assumed it was not for "everyone" although anyone could donate to ot.

Couldn't you use it and then make a donation to the organisation that runs it?

We didn't have a larder but there is a community shop. They stock up on Mondays and towards the end of the week they reduce prices or give food away.

This week it was chicken, potatoes, cabbage, onions and carrots for £7.

They have food that you can take but they are not allowed to sell, things like those little cereal boxes you get in a variety pack.

i used to, on a sunday when i met my dm in a certain place, but generally i would have to go out of my way to go there, more than 2 miles, so i am not sure it is worth it

They get to mark it off as charitable
giving also the costs of the bins to dispose of food are costly.

Most of what gets thrown rather than sold once reduced are the cheaper things very very rarely are you going to find lamb chops and salmon.

Did you actually READ the OP?

It depends really. As I wrote above I run one of these, I’d say on the larger side (up to 700 people a week and 1.5 tonnes of food). And I am involved in various research and other initiatives linked to community larders.

A lot of what we get is seasonal, or contra-seasonal - ie we get pumpkins after Halloween, Christmas chocs in January. On 24 December we have routinely gotten some very posh turkeys - I remember one of my volunteers turning over one and finding a price tag of £140 - and sides of salmon, because they all had dates of 26 December. The other side of that is enormous gluts of courgettes etc in their season, which we are invited to glean.

The other common thing is weather related - around the April bank holidays we will get a glut of either sausages or soup, depending on which way the weather has gone, I assume because supermarket head office buyers are hedging their bets on what consumers want.

I find it endlessly fascinating.

(And we throw next to nothing away - we send past-it veg to local allotments for composting, they swap us for herbs etc.)

Yes. I take fruit & veg that's started to go off for composting & feeding wildlife.

Thank you. So the answer is that it gives the supermarket a tax break and a story to share around their corporate social responsibility?

A food bank or a food waste project?

It's unlikely that they use a food bank, as virtually all of them require referrals (I'm a referrer for the Trussel Trust one, and am also called in to make referrals to other food banks). It's rare to find a food bank where anyone can just turn up.

I'd also be surprised if they wanted food from a food bank, as it's incredibly basic stuff.

Pretty much I’ve noticed the big Tescos near me say how many tonnes of food they have shared with social partners over the year etc

I do think it’s a good thing to reduce food waste but in general this is stuff that’s being given away at 9pm with a use by of that day or veg/ milk/bread with a best before date of that day.

Obviously some stuff can be frozen but the idea behind my local one which is just a wooden shelter with a fridge freezer and a table food goes out and they’d like it gone asap as can’t give away stuff after the use by date.

I used to be involved with a community larder, we were well used sadly had to close because of premises issues, I see some of people who came and they miss it, we were. A cross between food banks and a food waste project we had a mix of people but mainly people just trying to feed themselves through the week.

I was talking to a volunteer at a foodbank / community larder. He invited me to visit and take a bag with me. When I said that I would much rather someone in need had the food he told me that one of the volunteers regularly ends up taking boxes of leftovers to feed her pigs.

Interesting but I am still not convinced of the projects that focus solely on reducing the food waste as an environmental benefit. How does driving 1.5 tonnes of food, as multiple trips, to a different location, using fossil fuel, help the environment exactly?

When the food is set at the right price in store, it will sell. Basic economics. Is this not just an PR exercise, allowing the retailers to look like they are doing good, whilst extracting as much profit as possible?

There is absolutely an element (a large one) of greenwashing to it, I agree.

If you put me in charge of Big Supermarket tomorrow and asked me to develop a genuinely enviro friendly strategy, it would be "Less". Less choice, less chasing trends, fewer product lines. But supermarkets are chasing market share and spending huge amounts on being ready with sausages and lettuce when sunshine is promised; with soups and casserole veg when the weather turns, with Easter stuff Feb-April and so on, and never running out. The contra of that is waste - you can't be everything to all customers up until 11pm on the night of x event or season, and then snap your fingers and have that stuff all magicked away - especially if it's perishable.

Farmers pay a price too, given that the supermarkets negotiate them into the ground with their huge purchasing power.

Price - presumably the discounted cost of, say, soup in August would be so low that supermarkets make the decision to write it off and polish their halos.

BTW - we (and many similar) don't collect only from supermarkets. A lot of it is food markets, farms, food industry, hospitality. Because most of these products have long supply chains and there is waste at every stage.