How community fridge is helping Kirkcaldy families in poverty

It is located at Greener Kirkcaldy’s hub in East Fergus Place, Kirkcaldy. It was set up to reduce food waste and is available for anyone in the community to use.

The charity receives donations for the fridge from local businesses, organisations and individuals, of surplus food that is still within its sell by date and still good to eat. Members of the the public are welcome to go to Greener Kirkcaldy to receive and donate food.

The initiative is supported by the environmental charity Hubbub and enabled by a grant from the Scottish Government’s Climate Challenge Fund (CCF).

According to the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) it is estimated that each household in Scotland wastes £430 of food per household, or £550 for a family with children every year with at least £18 million of food thrown away nationwide that is still in date.

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Lauren Parry, senior development worker at Greener Kirkcaldy said: “We have been receiving food from Asda, Aldi, Lidl and the Co-op, we get a lot of fruit and vegetables and they go within minutes. We pick them up at about 10am and we find that they are all gone by lunchtime. It’s very popular.

“We get a lot of bread and baked goods from Asda and Aldi as well so we find they are quite valuable to the people who come in to use the fridge.”

Greener Kirkcaldy is also trying to raise awareness of the issue of food waste and how it impacts on peoples budgets and carbon footprint, Lauren Said: “Going forward, we are thinking about doing recipes to go with the items that are in the fridge, and we are going to start community meals that we hope will inspire people.

“We are also offering classes where people can come and learn how to cook with basic recipes and teaching them about household budgeting, we still do the food waste workshop which teaches people on how to use leftovers, that you might end up throwing away to make other meals, after Burn’s night we had a class making gnocchi from leftover potatoes.

Greener Kirkcaldy offers a range of services from the Community Fridge to cooking classes, craft workshops and growing workshops.

The fridge is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, from 9.30am – 4.30pm, and Wednesday noon – 4.30pm, to enable residents and local businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food that would otherwise be wasted

Find out more about Hubbub’s Community Fridge Network, including a map of fridge locations and advice for those interested in setting up a Community Fridge, HERE www.hubbub.org.uk/communityfridgenetwork.