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The Wigston Magna Community Fridge is an environmental project attached to the Wigston Magna Family Hub. It was set up in a growing effort to tackle food waste. This project is open to everyone, there are no referral criteria, the general public can just turn up and be supplied with free food that has been donated. However, we know that many people are struggling at the moment and so we do get requests for food parcels for local families that are being supported by the Family Hub that we are part of. The Community Fridge is also well known amongst the local homeless people that use other services in the area and they also attend. The Family Hub is part of Leicestershire County Council's Family Help Service. Families are supported across the county with a variety of issues such as poverty, ill health, mental health issues and disabilities. People are supported individually with visits from Family Support Workers as well as a variety of groups that support parenting skills. There is no charge for either the Community Fridge or the Family Hub services. The Community Fridge is open Wednesday and Thursday 1pm-2pm and Friday, 11am to 12 noon. The project enables residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food that would otherwise be wasted. We aim to help people in need in the Wigston and surrounding area and decrease food waste at the same time. Food waste is a big issue in the UK. The average household throws away £700 worth of food every year and at the same time 4 million people in the UK are living in food poverty. Most food waste in the UK is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed.

Foodkind began as Revolution Zero in Northamptonshire, with an environmental mission to stop good food going to waste – and to campaign about the over-supply in our wider food system. We collect surplus food from supermarkets and share it with the community. As our network of Shop Zero and Cafe Zero projects is closed during Covid-19, we are focused on food aid. From the start of lock down, our ‘Bags of Good’ team has delivered thousands of food parcels and taken fresh produce out to charities and food banks for their work to support vulnerable and isolated people, promoting #zero hunger #zero waste. Supermarkets are often left with unsold, but perfectly edible, food. Thanks to an unmatched team of collectors, we pick up from a wide variety of stores and bring produce to our hubs to be stored in our goods area; or frozen or chilled. Other volunteers work in our network of shops (pop-up and bricks and mortar), event stalls and cafes. The chefs and waiting staff create delicious meals, tailoring menus to match our stock. We offer training and are committed to making sure volunteering adds value for our colleagues. Schools, charities and other charities also share our produce and we support new projects to get going. As a Community Interest Company we invest any profits into developing the enterprise.

We started in October 2015 feeding the homeless, rootless and in need on a Saturday. We now run a Social Supermarket on Tuesdays 12 - 2, a fresh fruit and vegetable food bank on Thursdays 12 - 2 all from surplus food from Supermarkets and Saturdays we serve hot food 5 - 6pm. We currently run 5 projects. Our first project is Dine With Us on The Streets - Cherries Legacy where we support between 80 to 100 people with hot hearty food, take away food such as tins, sandwiches, crisps, fruit, hot drinks, toiletries and clothes, every Saturday These are people who are either street homeless, in hostels, on means tested benefits or in other financial crisis. We have been running this project since October 2015 and we believe in treating people with respect and with dignity. Our second project is Dine With Us Community Larder, our Food Bank project ,launched in February 2019, giving access to vital nourishment for those suffering food poverty. The need for this is much greater than we anticipated and we now need more partners so we can ensure that we have enough food to meet the demand. We are also incurring significant costs operating the programme, with the yearly rent on the unit, running costs and other sundries. We have seen as many as 75 (seventy five) families come to collect food in a single day. Our third project sees us support 11 schools with more looking to come on board (which we cannot commit to yet as we do not have enough food). Fresh fruit and vegetables and protein play a pivotal part in our organisation, as is encouraging people to eat more healthily, regardless of their circumstances. Our fourth project is sending out care packages to the community, quite often through the schools as well and our fifth project is opening and running Bedfords first Social Supermarket which has been in operation since April 2020. This gives people access to affordable food and provides a fundraising vehicle for us, to help towards the other projects we run on a goodwill basis.