Highbridge and Burnham-On-Sea Food Pantry is seeing record numbers of residents using its service, which provides low-cost surplus food in order to reduce food waste and help local people on low budgets.
The service, which launched in 2022, is a partnership between Burnham Baptist Church and Morland Community Hub.
Highbridge and Burnham-On-Sea Food Pantry is run by nine volunteers (pictured above) and based at Highbridge’s Trowbridge Close Community Hall. It helps over 80 local families each week.
Peggy Dunford, who is one of the volunteers that helps to run the service, says: “Our aim is to reduce food waste going into landfill. We charge £4.50 and for that our customers get two bags of food which includes chilled, veg, fruit and frozen goods.”
“We have been running just over two years and we started with 30 members which over time has increased to 83 a week.”
Anyone from the local area can join by heading to Highbridge’s Trowbridge Close Community Hall on a Friday between 12 noon and 3pm and filling in an application form to go onto the waiting list.
Peggy adds: “We would like to thank all the people and businesses that donate food and help every week and thank them for their support. Morrissons are our main sponsor, along with Yeo Valley, Farmfoods, Somerset Cuisine, M&S, Hunts and Fareshare. If any other business would like to donate, they can get in touch.”
The group is part of the Somerset Local Pantry Network (SLPN), who buy and collect surplus food and make it available to members for a low weekly fee. SLPN is a partnership between Somerset Council, local community groups and food charity, FareShare South West. Somerset Council provides initial grant money and support to help the launch of a new pantry, but each pantry is independently run by volunteers.
