It's a year since The Social Action Hub launched THE SOCIAL SUPERMARKET, forming part of our Food Hub provision delivered by Team Foodshare.
16% of all households in the UK have had to cut back of quantity or quality of food to afford other essentials (e.g. energy bills). We have supported over 2000 people in the past year tackle food poverty, which is becoming more evident with the current rising cost of living.
Our Social Supermarket has over 680 members, who pay £1 for lifetime membership. There is no restriction on Membership, it is open to everyone.
Our service cost for 1 basket of shopping (equivalent to 7 meals) is a donation of £3.50. Members can come every day of the week that we are open to collect a basket. Each basket is worth between £25 and £30.
We saved our members £1,725 (estimating customers use our service for 3 days a week) over the past 12 months. Members paid £525 for a years' worth of shopping, that would usually cost £2,250. As the cost of food continues to rise, we estimate that the next year we will be saving households £2,475.
In the past year, we have managed to provide 5,990 baskets of food, equivalent to 41,900 meals circa 3590 meals every month! Our volunteers have delivered 1,583 emergency food parcels to vulnerable families & individuals for those referred over to us from professional bodies.
Our social eating event M.E.A.L.S, has fed 75 adults & 15 children in the past 3 months it has been running. We are hoping to serve hundreds more by the end of the year, with our event being hosted every month.
Thank you all to support our services, if it wasn't for community engagement, we wouldn't be able to maintain or develop our Food Hub provision!
As well as The Social Supermarket supporting families & individuals who are tackling food poverty, we aim to reduce food waste alongside this. Over 12 months, we have saved 195,690kg of food from going to landfill! This is equivalent about 4 tonnes every month!
Why are landfill sites so harmful to the environment?
- Landfills are one of the causes of climate change due to the greenhouse emissions they produce - The impact on human health - The impact on animals and marine life - Air, soil & water contamination/pollution - Disease carrying pests
We have recently opened a decanting station to encourage Social Supermarket users to fill up tubs & pots from home to include pasta, teas & coffee in their basket, instead of giving out masses of plastic decanting bags. All plastic containers given to us in deliveries are returned to the company, to be reused rather than disposed of.
Below is a diagram of how we distribute the hundreds of tonnes of food coming through our building every year.
As a part of our vision, we strive to play an active role in tackling environmental issues and make our contribution matter. Thank you to those who use our services and promote the importance of reducing food waste!
Our volunteers work incredibly hard to better the lives of local people, whether friends, family, neighbours or strangers. We have been supported by 35 volunteers, who dedicate their spare time doing collections from stores all around the area or working in The Social Supermarket.
Volunteers have collectively contributed around 17,000 hours of their free time to support The Social Action Hub and make our vision a reality. Not only do volunteers dedicate their time, but they always ensure they greet customers & members of the public with a smile and high spirit.
In total, volunteers have collected roughly 3,120 donations in the past year! Without this constant support, we would not have the resources needed to function our Social Supermarket, not stop tonnes of food from going to waste.
In The Social Supermarket, we receive 2 large deliveries a week from FareShare, which are unloaded and used to stock the shelves. Not only do the volunteers put their back into heavy lifting, but they are constantly on their feet unpacking collections and stocking items onto the shelves. All our staff & volunteers are Food Hygiene trained and ensure their knowledge is applied daily when handling food.
Some students from The Joseph Whitaker School who have taken part in The Duke of Edinburgh's Award, chose us as a place to do volunteer experience. Thank you to those young people for kindly thinking of us and helping out in The Social Supermarket as a store assistant. One of our DofE volunteers said "I enjoyed my experience working in The Social Supermarket because I love helping the local community and giving back to those who need it".
We really don't know what we would do without you all! Thank you so much for being an inspiration to everyone and making all this possible!
All donations no matter how big or small are appreciated deeply & whole heartedly. Every single donation/amount of funding we receive contributes to expanding our service for everyone who uses it, to make the best out of the recourses we have.
We would like to say a huge thank you to the funders listed, for some on more than one occasion, making it possible to improve the all of the operations of Team Foodshare . This could be for a project already running or giving us the chance to start a whole new project under the Team Foodshare umbrella!
Thank you to the hundreds of local people & organisations who decided to generously donate to The Social Action Hub! Every item cycles back into the community, giving back to the people who need it most. We appreciate think of us & the people we support and taking the time to donate.
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