Visit to Bingley Rotary Club

FoodSavers

Rotarian Tess Wilkins of Bradford Bronte told us about the project FoodSavers which she is involved with. It grew out of the Inn Churches “Storehouse” project. The aim is to give people dignity by buying food albeit at a much-reduced price and reduce their dependency on Food Banks. They run a series of Food Pantries around the Bradford area usually linked to a local community centre or church. The pantries act as a corner shop which only opens for a few hours typically one day per week. No referral is required instead customers become a member by paying £5 or £6 per week. For this they can choose up to 15 items and sometimes are able to get some fresh fruit and vegetables in addition. Tess said that the average value of the food acquired was £30 per week.

Of the weekly membership fee £1 is paid into an account at the Bradford Credit Union which is based in City Hall Bradford. This enables people to start saving money – often for the first time in their life. This is boosted by a £10 initial gift that is funded out of grants that FoodSavers receive. The reason for this being that a Credit Union account has to be opened with a minimum £5 deposit.

There are currently 16 pantries around the Bradford Metropolitan area with 2 more due to open in early March and hopefully 2 more before the end of March. The stores are stocked from the Storehouse project which gets surplus food or food nearing it's "best by" date that is donated from local supermarkets, wholesalers, market traders and other local businesses. In addition they buy food from donations received.

As well as providing food the pantries put on cooking demonstrations and give out recipes so that people know what to do with the food acquired. Tess said that one of the big problems in modern society is that people don’t actually know how to cook as it is no longer taught in schools to the same degree as in times past and children don’t learn to cook at home from their parents.

To find out more about FoodSavers follow this link: - https://foodsavers.org.uk/about/

Or about Inn Churches Sorehouse follow this one: - https://innchurches.co.uk/food/storehouse/

Some years ago Bradford Blaize visited the Storehouse project and more details about Storehouse can also be found here: - https://www.rotary-ribi.org/clubs/page.php?PgID=555885&ClubID=183