Sainsbury's Marlow High Street Local

“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.

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

We have set up the Community Fridge to normalise the spirit of sharing locally and reduce food waste. Our doors are open to anyone and everyone regardless of means. Therefore no referrals are needed. Everyone is a guest. Guests are encouraged to use the space to share food as well as skills and to connect with other guests at the fridge. Reducing carbon emissions is key to this project mission and therefore we would not want to promote guests travelling long distances to the fridge by car. While we are happy to accept anyone that you point our way, we do want to flag the unpredictable levels of food moving through the fridge and we cannot guarantee that guests will get food or the food that they would like. We would not want to disappoint anyone who has made a journey. We are aware of the shocking level of (food) poverty within the UK and are pleased when the fridge is able to offer fresh food to those in need. However, we DO NOT wish for the fridge to become a social ‘service’ or for visitors to develop a dependency on the fridge. 1) because we do not want to ‘hide’ the level of need from the state 2) due to the erratic nature of food waste above. Also getting requests whether they have volunteer roles - We are offering to take on volunteers and mentor them in events management and fundraising. Increasing numbers of volunteers may mean that the fridge is open more days of the week or for longer hours. The Community Friendly fridge is developing its own sharing library - Share it - use it. Cookery books, Garden books are welcome.