Richmond Redistribution

Sharing is just another form of perishable logistics

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‘The real Junk Food Project (JFP) is not an ordinary soup-kitchen,’ Vanessa James, centre director of the Etna Community Centre in East-Twickenham/Richmond explains, as we sat down outside in the café on a balmy September morning.???

When the centre was approached by Christine Weller and Clare Box three years ago, Richmond Council soon got round to backing the idea of engaging with the local community by re-cycling surplus food the supermarkets could not sell.

Unlike a typical food bank, JFP handles product busting the envelope of distribution forming a real last mile alternative.

Set in the middle of one of the leafy West London suburbs where big Victorian houses hardly sell for under a couple of million pounds, the café is open three times a week offering tasty food prepared on the premises by a volunteer cook amidst a display of surplus fruit and vegetables aimed at whoever prefers to prepare their own food at home.

Everyone is welcome at the centre. “You pay as you feel,” says Vanessa. It’s totally un-judgmental and the beauty is in the immediate result. People of all walks of life drop in, chat, have a cup of tea or a vegetable soup and move on.?

“We have an APP where the supermarkets can list the excess food items,” café manager Eve Risbridger said. These include broad beans, potatoes, carrots, apples, all types of rolls, croissants, cupcakes etc. “Once we have decided what to accept, we get onto our 70 volunteers and book them in to help us on the day,” she adds. The volunteers pick up the food from the supermarket and bring it to the centre where any items passed their sell-by-date are being discarded.

Of course, it is not without a certain irony that as customers of local supermarkets are currently being faced with food shortages, linked to not least the shortage of trucking capacity, but also to wider supply chain disruption across the globe as mentioned in some of my other posts.

Supermarkets should not be tempted to dispose of food that isn’t fit for charity and thereby save on their own recycling bill. For example, two of the Socca nut Mix pack – ‘hand-roasted in London’ picked up earlier were clearly beyond redemption, tasting of saw-dust.?The sell-by-date was July 2021.?Probably this is an isolated case as the JFP volunteers are reminded to check the sell-by date, when they pick up the items, Clare explained.??

The food project currently manages up to 1200 kg of food a week. “Imagine 80 bath-fulls of stuff that is being sorted before being put out on display,” Eve said. ?This sounds impressive. Not a negligible quantity, as every effort to combat waste counts.

It is not junk that is being distributed but real food instead of going to landfill. Whereas, for example, in France the retail sector has been forced by law to redistribute surplus food the UK prefers to go down the charity route. So, in effect retailers can keep control both of consumers’ spending habits as well as appeal directly via the Real Junk Food project to the legendary British sense of fairness. ?However, it is difficult to get rid of the sneaking suspicion that charitability can simply serve as a front. It’s a bit like asking the business community: how much they want to pay in tax?

Yet in its defence, a project such as JFP, which is also actively being supported by the local residents association obviously fulfills a need and is clearly a valid contribution to bridging the growing gap between the rich and the poor in British society.????

The project, which has applied for charity status, has been going from strength to strength judging by the length of the queue of people waiting to get in on this sunny morning. As Eve points out, this is not a business. “All we aim for, is to break even.”

During the ‘high noon of Covid’ the centre was open every day and a system of home delivery was launched, with parcels being put together by the volunteers who were also used to distribute the food to cover the last mile.

“Whilst the Etna centre was closed during lock down, the food still kept coming in,” Clare said. So, she opened up her house and the kink in the supply chain was avoided. House-to-house distribution was the name of the game with volunteers parcelling up the food and taking it into the community.?“We just had to think on our feet,” Clare said, with a big smile.

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There is also a logistical safety net: when just before closing time the left-overs of the day are being shared out amongst the late café customers. Any stuff no one wants goes to another local charity called SPEAR and if everything fails, there are always ponies on stand-by ready to polish off the rest.

Created over 35 years ago, the Etna Centre is a charity supported by Richmond Council and has now also got the backing of the Major of London. It has ￡500,000 worth of capital projects currently running, most of which having been used to refurbish the property, develop the café, build an annexe and create a wonderful sensory garden.???????????????

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