Edventure: Frome with support from Frome Town Council, are launching the UK’s first community fridge on Saturday 30th April.
The fridge, stationed at the colourful Loop de Loop block, near Frome library, will be open every day to enable residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food that would otherwise be wasted.
The project is linking with local food businesses to encourage them to share good quality leftovers rather than throwing them away.
Esther Deeks, project co-ordinator said, “The statistics around food waste in the UK are shocking. The average household throws away £470 worth of food every year. Every day we throw away 220,000 loaves of bread, 5 million potatoes, and 660,000 eggs. At the same time, an estimated 4 million people live in food poverty in the UK and don’t eat enough fresh fruit and vegetables.
“Most of the food waste in the UK is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed. The fridge is a simple solution to enable anyone in Frome to share some of this surplus food – cutting costs and emissions.
“Let’s utilise our food, fight against waste and increase access to fresh produce. This will recover the time and energy that went into producing that food, and enable more people to enjoy it!”
The fridge will accept any kind of vegetables, bread, sandwiches and packaged goods that are within their use by date. To avoid any issues with food hygiene the fridge will not home raw meat, fish or eggs. Due to health and safety, the fridge can only accept cooked food from certified kitchens and therefore won’t be able to accept home-cooked food.
Inspired by similar projects in Spain and Germany, where there are networks of these fridges, the Frome fridge will launch on Saturday 30th April from 11.30am with food from Lungi Babah’s and music. It will then be open every day from 8am – 8pm.
The project is looking for volunteers to pop by for ten minutes each day
to check the fridge is clean and tidy. To find out more or volunteer visit:
www.facebook.com/community fridgefrome or contact
fridge@edventurefrome.org or call 01373 475574.
