Community Fridge running on empty

A lack of food waste donations from local eateries has impacted a community initiative that is struggling to keep up with demand.

The Community Fridge launched earlier this year to provide a location at the Town Hall where people could help themselves to the food waste left over from local cafes, restaurants and shops.

It has been popular but it was revealed at the latest Town Council Operations & Development Committee meeting that support had dropped off despite volunteers still carrying out their collections to stock the fridge, which is located at the back of the Town Hall.

“The difficulty with the Community Fridge – which is also a positive – is that the organisations currently donating to us don’t have anything to give,” reported Town Clerk, Richard Williams.

“It means they haven’t got any food waste, which is a positive in terms of they don’t have any food waste to collect, but also a negative that we are unable to distribute any food waste because there isn’t any. So, you have to see it from both sides of the coin.

“We are investigating, though, expanding our sources of food. Our regular places have started to slow down so we are looking at expanding our sources.”

Cllr David France said volunteers’ enthusiasm could wane if they are rostered and return empty from their collections.

“It is a problem because obviously if you have a volunteer who has committed a certain period of time in their week to go and collect food and then there is none there,” he said.

Mr Williams explained that the Town Council would continue to push for more local food outlets to support the initiative in the coming weeks and months.

Two months back we reported that the initaitive was targeting some of the town's big supermarkets to support.