Originally set up in the Wolverton Bath House in 2017, the Milton Keynes Community Fridge project is designed to combat food waste. The Coffee Hall community fridge was opened in 2018 by our Youth/Environment teams. In the early days, council officers collected food from supermarkets & local express shops, and the fridge was open 5 days a week, for 30 minutes each day. 

 

During the 2020 lockdown, the fridge closed to the public, and was changed to a food parcel delivery service, with products supplied by a local food charity, Sofea. As we came out of lockdown, a new service, Food Connect was set up to distribute food between shops and community fridges using a fleet of e-cargo bikes and an electric van. At the same time, we moved to 2 x 4 hour sessions per week, staffed by volunteers. There is also a monthly session on the last Saturday of the month, to give people who work during the week an opportunity to access the fridge. 

 

We regularly distribute over 600kg of food every week, and since July 2020 have provided the equivalent of over 160,000 meals to residents in the Woughton area. 

Set up at Coffee Hall in July 2020, the larder is part of a network of 24 similar operations in the UK. The project is run by the food charity SOFEA. There are currently 8 community larders in Milton Keynes, and there are several more due to come online in the new year. The larder is a paid membership scheme which gives people access to a wide range of high-quality food, and there are a range of other membership benefits in the pipeline – discounts on local businesses and services, utility vouchers etc. We run a popup café alongside the larder to encourage users to stay and socialise with each other.