ALDI SHEFFIELD - ST MARY'S GATE

The project began in May 2015 and ran a series of successful pop-ups, feeding an average of 201 people per event and utilising 15 volunteers each time to assist in the planning and execution of the events. Fast forward to 2026 and Food Works now recovers over 300 tonnes of surplus food per year to help build a fair and sustainable food system in Sheffield. Through our two community cafes and 17 community partner hubs we are providing access to affordable, sustainable food across the city.

Looprun is a response division and part of an independent social enterprise. This is more than food and is part of a supportive services platform to help people get sustained in their own individual way. With up to 94% success rate and seeing once those receiving free Looprun response bags to returning to stores as shoppers with baskets full. These are the impact stories created when all come together to do good for good. Service users are signposted to Looprun mostly from referrals including professionals in social and healthcare. Looprun provides free non perishables, perishable food, toiletries, and brand new clothing to people facing a temporary challenge. Whatever supermarkets, stores, and retailers can do is turned into a grateful donation to a neighbour in need. This is a response to real people in real-time. No food is banked providing a direct in and out service. We believe if the food is stored then a person in need is not getting any food, hence we provide an instant response and instant impact service. Looprun has access to professional volunteers who carry out a confidential support service to people in need. From homeless shelters, hostels, sheltered housing, care homes, soup kitchens and schools. This is a non voucher, free and confidential service. This means Looprun can reach more people in need with food donations. Anyone that receives a Looprun bag of essential food items is sustained thus creating a loop cycle. All are invited to become part of these sustainable stories in your local community. For further information and gallery access on the impact of Looprun please visit: Website: https://www.looprun-sciv.online/

We run a community pantry open to anyone in need of food, it is run on surplus food collections our aim is to feed as many families as we can We run our pantry from a local church/community centre. We run every Monday morning. https://www.facebook.com/share/rYJ6YGmtEDnE1hDD/?mibextid=K35XfP https://www.facebook.com/share/rYJ6YGmtEDnE1hDD/?mibextid=K35XfP We advertise on our facebook page.. see link above and on other local facebook pages as well as the church magazine and word of mouth . We have 580 members and growing all the time . Our pantry users queue from 3 hours before, showing the great need in the community. There is absolutely no charge to come in and fill your basket/bags provided . If anyone wants to leave a small donation then we are very appreciative . We have a church pantry bank account which we bank the donations every week. We manage to buy all our weekly pantry needs from this, such as bags, containers, hygiene gloves, thermometers, temperature charts, pat testing, cleaning stuff and also hire a large commercial bin and emptying service. We don’t have a large amount left as send to our local community farm and for composting at our local allotments. A no profit lunch club is also run by the church and community centre in the next room, the users are brought in by community transport buses, local buses, cars and by foot . This is very important for the elderly and disabled as some dont see anyone week to week. They also enjoy using our pantry We recently were invited to have a table at a question and answer event at another nearby centre. We were amongst other local organisations such as. Local environment groups, renewable energy advice, transport, recycling etc. we found this valuable as got a lot of interesting questions asked which helped us to understand exactly what the locals want. . We also collect donations from fareshare . We have had visits from local MPs, environmental health and have got a 5 star hygiene rating on our door and hold hygiene certificates ourselves . We would like to open on another day with support . Our volunteers are amazing, we have a great team .