A COMMUNITY fridge in Kempshott, along with nine others in the south, have been given a major boost.

Southern Co-op has donated £40,000 to allow for more surplus food to be available at 10 locations.

The regional co-operative is supporting the community fridges via Hubbub as another way to reduce food waste and tackle food insecurity in local communities.

The fridges work on an honesty basis and are usually housed in publicly accessible places, making surplus food freely available to members of the public. Surplus perishable food is donated by local businesses, charities such as FareShare or members of the public and then made available for all. The fridges are available for anyone to use.

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Catherine Waters-Clark, found and chief executive of Inspero which operates a community food pantry and fridge in Kempshott Village Hall, said: “Inspero is implementing a Community Fridge to complement its existing community shop to support people impacted by the cost of living crisis.

“This means that we turn around two to three tonnes of surplus food each week, some of this can be frozen as well as fruit and vegetable produce from our charity community garden for the public’s benefit.

“If produce has gone too far, we compost it to make it into compost tea and manure for the plants at the community garden. It is a great extra facility to have in place and means less food goes into landfill and access to good food is available to support vulnerable older people and families struggling.”

Including the facility in Basingstoke, community fridges are already open to the public in Brighton, Chichester and Uckfield, three more are planned for Hayling Island, Adur and Worthing, and three are still to be confirmed.

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Community lead at Southern Co-op Holly Bramble said: “Whilst we already make sure all of the food from our stores gets eaten or processed into biogas, it’s just as important that we enable communities to also reduce their own food waste.

“These fridges bring together people from the local area and can be the spark to building the local community spirit. They are often run by volunteers who share our passion for sustainability, so it is has been wonderful getting to meet some of those involved.”