Do you like good food? Hate waste? Do you want to save money?
South Leeds residents are being invited to join a popular scheme to receive a large crate of so-called ‘freegan’ food (good quality food that would otherwise get binned) for just £13.50 per week.
The family-sized boxes have different contents each week, but feature a mix of staple and luxury products, and fresh and packeted items; each box is worth an estimated £40 per week. They are sourced and delivered by Leeds charity Rethink Food (formerly Food Revival), who are part of the growing international ‘junk food’ movement aiming to stop the needless waste of surplus food.
They do so by intercepting food that’s heading unnecessarily for landfill, and distributing it through a network of cafes, venues, events, schools, and community box schemes. This project of theirs has been running since 2018, with members collecting their boxes every week from Rowland Road Social Club in Beeston Hill. The scheme was previously over-subscribed, but now has capacity to take on new people.
Local community campaigner Ed Carlisle, who helped bring the scheme to south Leeds, commented:
“Loads of us locally struggle to afford good quality food – and in the meantime, tons upon tons of good food is being chucked away everyday across the country: insane. But this scheme breaks the mould, and gives us great food for cheap – whilst reducing waste, and helping to save the planet. This is a good, popular scheme – and we’d now love more people to sign up, and to help spread the word.”
For more info or to register, visit rethinkfood.co.uk, email boxes@rethinkfood.co.uk, call (0113) 873 0016 – or come to Rowland Road club between 6-7pm on Tuesday 8 February, to meet and talk with one of the Rethink Food team.
Subscribers pay by Standing Order, and collect the boxes from Rowland Road each Tuesday. Boxes can be tailored to suit any dietary needs. The coordinators are also keen to hear from others locally who might be interested in helping to set up schemes elsewhere in south Leeds.
The Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) – a UK charity and campaign body – estimates that 1.9m tons of food is wasted by the UK food industry every year, with about a fifth of that (400,000 tonnes) suitable for redistribution.
