ALDI GUISELEY

Rethink Food is an award winning non-profit organisation recognised as one of the UK’s Top 100 social enterprises in the NatWest SE100 Index 2025...on a mission to create a generation of healthy, food-literate, and environmentally conscious young people. We intercept and make sense of food surplus. Educate and empower people to live food secure lives. Redistributing to primary schools, families and those that need it. We also offer education to make the food system fair and sustainable.

The Otley 2030 Community Larder aims to intercept food from local businesses, that would otherwise be going to landfill and provide healthy and affordable food to local people. This is part of Otley 2030's mission of bringing the town together to create climate-friendly and sustainable communities where people and nature thrive together. Our goal is to make Otley a carbon-zero, sustainable and fair town by the 2030s, and to ensure that this transition is made in a just and democratic way, involving all areas of our local community.

We aim to reduce food waste by collecting surplus food from local retailers and distributing it free of charge to the local community. Menston Parish Council have awarded us a grant which covers all setting up costs, and will go towards running costs (insurance, electricity etc) for our first year. We will apply for further funding from local sources, such as Shipley Community Chest, to cover running costs. Whilst use of the fridge is free for everybody, people will be able to make a voluntary donation if they wish. The fridge is located at Kirklands Community Centre, at the heart of Menston, and is run by a group of volunteers. We operate under the 'umbrella' of Kirklands (Menston)Trust, a charitable incorporated organisation. The fridge is open to all members of the community, either to take food or to donate any surplus that they may have, according to our guidelines as to which foods can be accepted. In addition to providing access to healthy food, our fridge brings people together and addresses social isolation in our community. We work closely with Menston pre-school, primary school, churches, scouting groups and charities that provide support to the more vulnerable in our community. Everyone in Menston has the opportunity to become involved in this project, as a volunteer and/or as a user. We will develop the project in a number of ways over time, including community composters, a 'recipe bank' with ideas for reducing food waste, educational activities for pre- and primary school children, supervised volunteering opportunities for the Duke of Edinburgh Award participants, and cooking sessions.