M&S Marlow

AJ Café CIC: A Professional Community Food Hub in Britwell AJ Café CIC is a dedicated, volunteer-led community lifeline based in the Britwell Hub, Slough. We operate a professional food rescue network, collecting surplus from major supermarkets six days a week. This rescued food is dedicated entirely to providing essential food parcels for local families in need, ensuring that high-quality surplus reaches those who need it most. Our mission is rooted in social and mental wellbeing. At our AJ Café, we serve quality, low-cost breakfasts and paninis using fresh ingredients to support residents through the cost-of-living crisis. This spirit of connection continues through our "Come Dine With Me" project, where community members cook and eat together to build lasting friendships and combat isolation. We are committed to the next generation through our Mentoring and Employment initiatives. Every last Saturday of the month, we provide young people with professional barista training and safety mentoring, giving them the skills and confidence to build a brighter future. From our Monday Warm Space to our crisis meal support, we ensure that no one in our community is left behind, using food to nourish, connect, and empower.

Serving the people of High Wycombe and South Bucks with food parcels

“We are fighting food waste and preventing residual food from going to landfill. The residual food is repurposed to ensure no one goes hungry”. We have a retail shop in the centre of High Wycombe. The shop is open 6 days a week. We have a warehouse on the first floor where we can sort and distribute food. This allows us to both run a shop feeding those in need and supply our partner organisations. We are collecting from leading major supermarkets within a 15-mile radius of High Wycombe. We also receive direct deliveries from manufacturers and warehouses. We are also a member of the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) which represents independent food banks and distributors across the UK. Our Food Hub model allows us to manage not only residual food but also ambient, chilled, and frozen food. The fact we have both a retail and wholesale distribution ability has been identified by Fare share as one of a few operations in SE England with this capability. Who do we supply? WFH supply products to people unable to access or buy food, those that cannot get Government aid or are unable to survive on the Government’s benefit payments, those who are now suffering from loss of jobs and the self-employed who cannot get benefits, those who cannot access the traditional referral foodbanks. The range of people coming to us for help is growing weekly. Considering what is happening nationally the need for our food and services will continue to grow. We have partnered with other charities and groups and we are supplying residual product to food distribution organisations across Bucks. We are also piloting supplying food to partner organisations who are using the ingredients in hot meals and school food packs. Current scale of operation We have volunteers out each day and evenings collecting residual food. We currently collect more than 250 crates a week from leading supermarkets, warehouses, and retail shops. Food that would otherwise go to landfill. We have a retail food hub open 6 days a week for 3 hours each day We are directly feeding Circa 500 people each week through our retail food hub and partners. In addition, we offer free food outside of the hub . Our wholesale operation is supplying both food parcels and crates of food to our partners. We are also now being asked to supply food to be used in the preparation of cooked meals. Our wholesale operation is growing each week as more organisations draw on our services Funding streams We receive no statutory finding from govt of Council. We rely on donations from public and by asking for a donation from users of our retail hub. We also supply food free to the charities and organisations who are taking food from us each week.