Toolkit: reducing food waste at home

Last updated: 30 January 2023

Community fridges

A 'community fridge' is a space with fridges and freezers that enables local people and businesses to donate fresh, good-quality surplus food that would otherwise be wasted. The donated food is then made freely available for local people to come and collect at no cost.

This fosters a spirit of sharing and mutual support within the community, reducing food waste and helping make a positive social impact in the area.

Local community fridges

Starting your own fridge

Hubbub is an organisation that delivers environmental projects, including the Community Fridge Network. They make it easy for groups to set up and run community fridges by providing:

guidance and advice
help with promotion
connections with retailers
access to potential funds

If you're thinking about starting your own community fridge or have one already, you can become a member of the Hubbub network to access the membership benefits.

To get started:

Email [email protected] and a member of the team will be in touch
Complete the membership agreement
Become a fully registered member
You’ll get health and safety support, access to design assets and access to discounted fridges and freezers
Send Hubbub your risk assessment, food hygiene rating, and public liability insurance via email
Launch your fridge!

You can also join the open Community Fridge Facebook group and view Hubbub's latest funding opportunities.

If you have any questions about community fridges and the Hubbub network, contact our Lead Food Coordinator Hannah Tomlin:

email: [email protected]
phone: 01296 382655

Resources

Edventure: community fridge toolkit

During the Covid pandemic we delivered food parcels to those in need, we wanted to find a way of providing the community with food in the long term as well as protecting our environment and reducing food waste.

After researching different solutions, we decided to open a Community Fridge. We couldn’t find a suitable venue so started fundraising to buy a container, we worked with the Council and applied for planning permission to use a space in Chalfont St Giles car park.

We opened in September 2021 and are open twice a week. On average we redistribute over 1.5 tonnes of food each month.

We collect surplus food from local supermarkets, allotments and encourage people to drop in any food they wont use.

The fridge is open to everyone, some people use it to help reduce food waste and some people come to help them with saving money, it has a wonderful community feel and is a very social place.

If you are considering starting a community fridge our top tips are to:

join the Hubbub Community Fridge Network – they have huge amounts of advice and resources you can use
look at potential venues – is there a hall, community centre or space for a container somewhere?
work with the council - get in touch with Helping Hands, local councillors and your MP. They will be delighted to support you
look for funding opportunities – you will need start up costs and ideally a paid member of staff to work 14 to 21 hours per week overseeing everything

People standing outside a green converted storage container at All Together Community Fridge

Funding your community fridge

Community boards are a new way of bringing together the council, groups, organisations and residents to look at local issues and find ways of improving them together.

There are 16 community boards across Buckinghamshire.

Find your local community board

As a community-led partnership, community boards:

influence how decisions are made and how services are delivered
represent the voice of local people
capture thoughts, ideas and suggestions
bring together key community partners and residents
identify local needs and work to produce creative solutions

The boards will use local data, intelligence and the views of people and partners in the community to identify key areas of focus and priorities for the board. These priorities will help determine where the boards take action and allocate funding to improve the local area.

Community board funding

Each board has an allocated budget to fund local projects and initiatives. The budget for each financial year is aligned to the council’s strategic priorities in consultation with the Cabinet Portfolio holder for Communities.

The community board fund will be open to grant applications from community and voluntary organisation projects and schemes that will help improve outcomes for residents and address the area priorities determined by board. The fund also supports the delivery of our Corporate Plan.

Find out more about the funding available from community boards, including criteria and how to apply.

Community Impact Bucks: Bucks Funding Search

Community Impact Bucks is an independent charity that supports people and groups to get involved and make a difference in their local communities.

Their Buckinghamshire Funding Search tool allows you to search for funding opportunities across Buckinghamshire.

Find out how Community Impacts Bucks can provide support and other sources of income for your projects on their funding page.

Eat It Up funding

Hubbub's Eat It Up Fund is available if your organisation already provides a community fridge or food hub but wants to run further food waste initiatives.

You can apply for grants of up to £40,000 (supported by Starbucks) to fund related projects such as:

using surplus food in creative ways in communities or at home
minimising food waste from retailers
preventing food from being wasted at the manufacturing and processing stage
addressing pre-farmgate waste (the food production process, up to the point where the products have been harvested and prepared as produce for sale)

For more information and how to apply, visit the Eat It Up website.