A Community Fridge has been installed in BHT’s Whitehawk Inn on Whitehawk Road, Brighton, in an initiative designed to fight food waste and food poverty.
The fridge was launched on Tuesday 19 February, thanks to funding from Sainsbury’s Waste Less Save More campaign for Brighton & Hove Food Partnership. A fridge which they set up last year has been a great success, with more than 1,000kg of food donated to it over the past nine months and dozens of people making use of it.
The idea of a community fridge is that it is set up in a public space and makes surplus food available free of charge to anyone who wants it. The surplus food can be provided by local businesses or members of the public. It is a great way of stopping good food ending up in the bin – in Brighton and Hove 30,000 tonnes of food a year is wasted by businesses and households.
Helen Starr-Keddle, Development Officer with Brighton & Hove Food Partnership, said:
We are very excited to launch this second Community Fridge in Brighton. Food poverty and food waste are both huge problems and it is fantastic to see a positive solution to both issues. The first Community Fridge is going exceptionally well.
The new Whitehawk Inn Community Fridge is open Monday to Thursday 9am to 4pm and Friday 11am to 1pm. It can accept sealed packaged foods, cheeses, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, table sauces, pastry, unopened milk and yoghurt, unopened fruit juices and salads, and eggs if they are in date.
Unfortunately, it cannot accept home-cooked food or cooked food from unregistered sources, cooked food that doesn’t have a use-by date, cooked rice, pâtés, bean sprouts and food made from unpasteurised milk.
Mirco Cordeiro, coordinator of the Community Fridge scheme at Brighton Housing Trust, said:
Whitehawk Inn serves one of the most deprived communities in the country. The contrast with other areas in Brighton and Hove emphasises the need for a dual approach, one which will attempt to reduce food waste – a national problem that also affects our city – while also addressing food poverty. We are developing partnerships to ensure regular donations of surplus food.
Community Fridges have been installed in many sites across the country, supported by Hubbub, a national charity coordinating the Community Fridge network.
