Fife village hub launches new community fridge

The new service is running at Tayport’s Larick Centre, which opened its doors to local residents earlier this year.

Operating once a week, the fridge team collect food from the nearby Co-op which would otherwise end up in the dump, including fruit, vegetables and bread. This is then put on a table outside the centre every Thursday between noon-1pm, with locals able to pick up the food for free.

“We want to contribute to reducing food waste,” said Yvonne Wynia, project co-ordinator at the centre.

“There is a lot of interest in the community about doing this.”

Fife Council contacted the centre about the project and has provided some support.

While the project is only running for an hour per week at the moment, it could expand in the future.

“We’re starting small to see how it goes,” said Yvonne.

“We open one hour per week on a Thursday and put the table out with the produce we have collected from the Co-op. We asked if they had any food they were going to put out for waste and asked if we could have it.

“They were up for it. We pick up what they are putting out and can’t be sold.

“The project is going well. It’s still early days, though. We get rid of everything. We would like to extend it in the future and approach other shops to take part.

“We put the information about the project on Facebook and there was a lot of reaction to it – people were saying that it is fantastic.

“People come along and help themselves. It’s grown through word of mouth.”

The Larick Centre opened at the start of the year, just before the Covid-19 pandemic started. Despite the limitations of the lockdown, the hub has already become a central part of the village.

“When we were in level two the first time we were able to do health and fitness classes like yoga.

“We organised stuff around Hallowe’en and had a guy come in who repairs bikes.

“There are limits on what we can do. When it is safer we will be able to do more.”

Similar community fridge projects have been set up around Fife, with schemes such as the People’s Pantry in Leven becoming big successes.

If you would like to find out more about the Larick Centre, visit the Facebook page – www.facebook.com/tayportcommunitytrust.