BASIC Life Community Pop-Up Shops
Felixstowe, UK
We are providing cheap affordable food using a unique format. While we have also ran a foodbank for the last five years and will continue to do so, we have found that there is a very significant percentage of those in need who do not use it for various reasons. Our unique BASIC Community Pop-Up shop idea has transformed the lives of many suffering from food insecurity. We now run four a week in Felixstowe (five fortnightly) and have now opened in Ipswich are six locations. The food, which is primarily supermarket excess, is offered to absolutely anybody who wishes to come along. We do not have any means tests or referral needs. They are literally open to anybody at all. A full list of the present locations can be found on our website under 'pop-up shops'. The result of the five years in Felixstowe has been an amazing reduction in the amount of referrals for food bank assistance as people in need know that they can go and choose the food they need from the pop-up's without any invasive questions of any kind. During 2020, despite the pandemic restrictions, we opened at six sites across the town of Ipswich and in 2021 we started to open at sites in more rural area's of Suffolk. To date we are open in Newmarket and in the village of Debenham. More sites are in the advance discussion stage.
What we've received