August 14, 2024
Our recent Community Fridge Tour event offered a fantastic opportunity for attendees to learn more about how to get community fridge projects off the ground, and how to start tackling food waste in your area.
The day started in South Brent, where we heard about the journey that Sustainable South Brent have taken in setting up their community fridge from Inga Page’s talk which provided inspiration at a SusSH meeting, to a public meeting in May garnering interest in local residents, to opening the Fridge in late October last year.
We heard about choosing the venue, sourcing the food and training volunteers, collecting plenty of useful advice (plus some tea and pastries!) before boarding Bob the Bus and heading over to Tavistock. TavyFridge, unlike South Brent's fridge, is housed inside in the foyer of the local library and has been running for two years. We were shown around and given lots of great information including a discussion on working collaboratively with other organisations.
As well as looking at these two different models of operation, we talked about much smaller endeavours that might be a good place to start for many organisations and communities - even utilising old phone boxes for tiny community fridges! Anything that helps save food from going to waste is a good idea and all agreed that the day was really worthwhile and thought provoking.
Many thanks to Emma Croft from the Food Rescue project, Sustainable South Brent andTavy Fridge coordinators for making this possible.
If you are interested in setting up a community fridge in your area you can contact Emma Croft by emailing emma.croft@devon.gov.uk. She can help you with advice and guidance, as well as some funding advice for this amazingly worthwhile project!