FAKENHAM HAS GOT A COMMUNITY FRIDGE

North Norfolk’s first ‘Community Fridge’ is located at First Focus in Oak Street, Fakenham.Supported by a host to organisations including North Norfolk District Council, Recycle for Norfolk, the environmental charity Hubbub UK and Sainsbury’s plc, the Fakenham Community Fridge is part of a growing effort to tackle food waste.

The fridge is open 4 days a week, Mon to Wed 9am-1pm & Thursday 9am-3pm to enable residents and businesses to share surplus food. At present we have regular donations from supermarkets Aldi, Tescos, Morrisons and Flour and Bean. Anyone can use this food that would otherwise have been wasted.

First Focus is calling on the support from the Fakenham Community to donate surplus food such as tinned and dry foods, still within its ‘use by’ date in to the Community Fridge where local people can help themselves to good quality unwanted food.

Food waste is a big issue in the UK. The average family throws away £700 worth of food every year and at the same time 4 million people in the UK are living in food poverty. Most food waste in the UK (4.1 million tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed.

North Norfolk’s Cabinet Member for the Environment, Cllr Annie Claussen-Reynolds said: “No one likes to see edible food go to waste and this is such a simple idea to prevent it.

Despite growing awareness of food waste generally, there aren’t that many ways for
businesses to get food nearing its ‘use by’ date to others until now. The Community Fridge is an open access fridge which we hope local food retailers and residents will embrace by making good use of it.”

The Chair of the Norfolk Waste Partnership, Cllr John Fisher commented “We are delighted to be part of the UK’s growing Community Fridge Network. With ultimately seven Community Fridges being installed in Norfolk, we will have the largest network of Community Fridges outside of London.”

The fridge is part of the wider project to raise awareness of food waste known as the Fakenham Discovery Community. Fakenham is one of seven new Sainsbury’s Discovery Communities being set-up in Norfolk by the Norfolk Waste Partnership under the banner of Recycle for Norfolk.

Further details about the Community Fridge and everything planned in the Fakenham
Discovery Community can be found at www.norfolkrecycles.com/communityaction/communityfridges

or via Twitter and Facebook: @PlanEatSave @Recycle4Norfolk

Norfolk’s Community Fridges are part of a national Community Fridge Network established by Hubbub, a UK based charity that creates environmental campaigns with a difference. In 2016 Hubbub helped South Derbyshire Community Voluntary Service) set up the Swadlincote Community Fridge. During the initial six month trial period it re-distributed 2,290kg worth of food, which would have otherwise been wasted.

The national statistics and information on food waste in the UK can be found at:
www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/why-save-food
wrap.org.uk/taking-action/citizen-behaviour-change/ see below for the wastage we have saved currently –