ALDI DURHAM - PIT LANE

In the North East alone over 800,000 tonnes of food waste is generated every year. That’s over a third of food produced for us to eat. We think that’s rubbish and we hope you agree. We use our cafe as a platform for campaigning and educating people about food waste. All members of the community are welcome and we get up to 600 people through our Cafe per week. We don’t see this food as ‘waste’, we see beautiful and valuable food, and we see the energy, time, fuel, water and other resources that have gone into making it, packaging it and getting it to our supermarket shelves. Join us in giving it value and stopping this waste of resources.

We are a group of friendly volunteers in Great Lumley that provide food hampers to local residents to get them through a few days if they are struggling to make ends meet, isolating or in need of help. We also have a Community Table and Community Fridge where local people can pop in and take donations from local shops and businesses that would otherwise go to landfill. Everything we do is free of charge or on a pay-as-you-feel basis. Any donations we do receive are used to buy stock items for our hampers. We run out of Great Lumley Methodist Church alongside Heaven's Kitchen which provides a lunch project where we provide home-cooked, three course lunches each Tuesday - also on a pay-as-you-feel basis. During the recent lockdown we provided over 9000 meals to the elderly and vulnerable in the community. We are always happy to receive donations of any kind and will ensure that it is distributed to help our community.

Coxhoe and Area Community Pantry's vision is to ensure everyone in Coxhoe and its it's surrounding villages will have access to good food, and help the environment by alleviating food wastage. Our aim is to offer a service which works for the benefit of our local community and we work with residents, local businesses, partners and stakeholders to offer a fit for purpose volunteer operated food resource centre, sourcing and sharing surplus affordable food with those currently experiencing food insecurities, and enabling everyone involved to help our environment by supporting a reduction in food waste. We open twice a week - Monday mornings 9.30am - 11am and Thursday evenings 5pm - 7pm and offer a varied menu determined each week by the donations we receive. We are not discriminatory or judgemental in any way and understand that families and individuals all have different circumstances which finds them having food insecurities; and so we ask our customers to 'pay as they feel' for the food they chose to take. This is done anonymously, in that customers are given a blank envelope when they come in and are asked to contribute however much they can afford (if anything) for the food they receive into the envelope before placing it in a box with all other envelopes We gratefully accept donations of food from our community members and local businesses to help provide this service. We have a storeroom and electrical equipment to ensure we are able to effectively store our donations in a clean and ordered environment, adhering to food guidelines and with food safety being paramount. We highlight any foods which may contain ingredients which may cause food allergies and measure and record food temperatures for our fresh food, as well as monitoring sell by dates If we were to be successful with our application we would use the grant to support our sustainability i.e. help with running costs for our pantry, and for equipment needed to store and distribute food, and for costs associated with storing the food and operating the pantry twice a week, as well as buying any emergency food as well as any emergency food we would need to help support a customer