- London boroughs can bid for a share of £300,000 to help create ‘social supermarkets’ that make otherwise unwanted food available cheaply to those on very low incomes.
- Announcement comes as Mayor’s award winning food waste scheme FOODSAVE helps save small businesses a record £550,000 and diverts over 1,000 tonnes of food waste from landfill.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has announced £300,000 of funding for new social supermarkets that reduce food waste by selling stock at low prices to local people on low incomes and struggling with food poverty. The food is in-date and wholesome and would otherwise be thrown away by big retailers for a variety of reasons, including items packaged and weighed incorrectly and over-production.
London boroughs can apply for a share of the fund to help set up pilot supermarkets which help families on lower incomes and offer a range of supportive community services. The new shops will receive funding from the Mayor’s High Street Fund as part of a £129 million investment from the Mayor that has already improved 56 high streets across the capital and attracted £56 million of match funding from public and private sector partners, aimed specifically at helping London’s high streets to adapt and thrive.
Today’s announcement came as the Mayor visited London’s first social supermarket, Community Shop in West Norwood, Lambeth. The shop’s customers are local people who can buy a range of discounted fresh and packaged food for approximately one–third of the retail cost. The shop has a ‘Community Hub’, where a range of local partners provide mentoring, budgeting and debt advice, job training and cookery classes. To be eligible to join the shop customers have to be on lower incomes and live locally. The shop uses any excess stock as ingredients in its popular in-house community café which serves a variety of meals and delicious snacks made by their chef.
Community Shop reduces food waste by selling residual stock that would be thrown away by major retailers. In the UK, 4.1 million tonnes of food is wasted in the grocery retail supply chain each year. Residual food is safe, in-date and edible but not used by major retailers for a variety of reasons, such as faulty packaging and over-ordering.
The Mayor is helping tackle the problem of food waste and has already helped divert 1170 tonnes of unwanted food from landfill – the equivalent of 97 Routemaster buses – to his successful FoodSave scheme that has helped 200 small and medium sized food organisations prevent food waste and put surplus to good use. Businesses have been busy turning their surplus food into meals and their food by-products into animal feed, making a collective saving of £582,437.
FoodSave traders in Borough Market have used the scheme to turn food surplus previously sent to landfill into 4,800 nourishing meals for hundreds of people living in the area. They started off diverting low risk foods such as baked goods and vegetables, but due to the success of the programme they have been able to invest in cool boxes so that charities are also able to collect surplus meat, fish and dairy products. This has helped local charities save an estimated £10,000 a year of in food costs.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: “I want to see more innovative schemes on our high streets that tackle food waste, help communities and offer access to a variety of good standard cheaper food. Community Shop’s range of training and skills services make it a hugely positive resource. My funding will help boroughs kick start similar ‘social supermarket’ ventures that can really help local people on tight budgets. I’m also immensely proud that small cafes and restaurants have managed to stop 1,000 tonnes of food being wasted by strategically diverting their surplus stock with help from my FoodSave scheme. It’s important we continue to reduce London’s landfill and ensure quality edible food is not discarded.”
Mark Game, Managing Director of Community Shop, said: “Opening a successful social supermarket requires retail space, food partners, local authority backing and infrastructure funding. We urge those who want to support us widen our network across London, in particular local authorities, to come forward. The funding announced today by the Mayor – who has always been such a huge supporter of ours – will be a real help as we develop across the capital.”
Cllr Lib Peck, Lambeth council leader, said: “Community Shop in Lambeth was the first in London, and it is proving to be a fantastic initiative, making a very real difference to people’s lives. It now has 500 members in Lambeth and has also been helping local people into work through its support programmes. We’re only too aware how difficult it has become for hundreds of families living on the breadline with rising costs and government cuts over the last few years, and Community Shop is providing a lifeline for many in our borough. It does a great job of matching up perfectly good surplus food with those who need it. But it’s not only about food – it’s about making communities that bit fairer and supporting those people who need a little bit of extra help; that’s why we’ve been happy to facilitate Community Shop in Lambeth.”
Mental Fight Club receive some of Borough Markets FoodSave surplus for their weekly café for people with mental health problems in the Market’s Dragon Café.
Sarah Wheeler, from Mental Fight Club, said: “Last week yellow courgettes, golden beetroot and cheese and olive bread-sticks arrived as a first encounter for many of our patrons. It’s wonderful for people to be able to try new types of food. Mental ill-health is often accompanied by poor diet and for many who come the food they get from The Dragon Café is their only freshly cooked meal of the week. As a result of this brilliant arrangement, The Dragon Café has halved its ingredient costs and our takings are rising steadily each week.”
FoodSave also helps businesses to reduce food waste by supporting a long term change in kitchen and supplier arrangements. Moshi Moshi, a sushi restaurant situated in Liverpool Street Station, saved an amazing £14,837 per year and made an annual landfill diversion of 1.2 tonnes of food waste as a result of FoodSave. This meant negotiating with suppliers about the cuts of meat and fish they were sold and ensuring the Maki chef was kept on for dinner service, allowing preparation to be to order instead of pre-prepared.
Caroline Bennett, found and owner of Moshi Moshi, said: “Food Save was a real eye-opener. It helped us in quantifying that employing an extra chef on a quiet shift was actually more cost effective than pre-preparing food and then wasting it if the shift wasn’t busy.”
FoodSave is run by the Sustainable Restaurant Association and Sustain, and funded by the Mayor of London. It is keen for all food businesses to use the online resources available to reduce their food waste and continue the practices of the programme.
ENDS
Notes to editors:
- The High Street Fund is the latest in a series of funding rounds, which started in 2011 with Round One of the Outer London Fund, aimed specifically at helping London’s high streets to grow and become more vibrant. The £9 million Fund is helping London’s high streets to become even better places to visit, live in and to do business in. It is part of a £129 million investment from the Mayor that has already improved 56 high streets across the capital and attracted £56 million of match funding from public and private sector partners.
- Two boroughs will be awarded £150,000 each as part of the Mayor’s ambition to pilot social supermarkets more broadly in London and help increase their impact.
- FoodSave was funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) and the Mayor of London. FoodSave is supported by London Food Board and is run through the Sustainable Restaurant Association and Sustain.
- The Sustainable Restaurant Association (SRA) is a national, not-for-profit membership organisation providing restaurants with expert sustainability advice through a team of specialist account managers. The SRA helps member restaurants source food more sustainably, manage resources more efficiently and work more closely with their communities. Members enjoy the economic benefits of greater sustainability and the SRA promotes their activities to consumers.
- Sustain: The alliance for better food and farming advocates food and agriculture policies and practices that enhance the health and welfare of people and animals, improve the working and living environment, enrich society and culture and promote equity. Sustain is a registered charity and represents around 100 national public interest organisations working at international, national, regional and local level. The organisation runs a number of projects and campaigns working towards a more sustainable food system, including Capital Growth (the food-growing network for London), London Food Link (a network for Londoners interested in local and sustainable food), and the Real Bread Campaign.
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