Food poverty in Coventry to be tackled with community supermarket scheme

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Food poverty in Coventry to be tackled with community supermarket scheme

Postby dutchman » Fri May 25, 2018 6:28 pm

Coventry is set to pilot a community supermarket scheme in a bid to tackle food poverty and reduce the demand on the city's foodbanks

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Feeding Coventry has secured £250,000 of National Lottery funding to launch the scheme which will sell food at a discounted price to people in need.

Gavin Kibble, trustee of Feeding Coventry said the scheme would reduce the demand on foodbanks in the city by supporting people through the issues that lead to their use.

Coventry is one of three cities piloting the community supermarket idea after being approached by the national food poverty charity Feeding Britain.

A bid has been launched to use Foleshill Community Centre, which shut its doors in March 2015, as a base for the operations, but the team are waiting to hear whether it has been successful.

The scheme would work on a membership basis, assessed by need, whereby those signed up would be able to buy food at approximately a third of the price they would in a normal supermarket.

As well as offering discounted food, a dedicated team would support members through times of hardship and work within the community to resolve the issues surrounding food poverty.

Gavin explained: "Foodbanks deal with the consequences of food poverty rather than the causes.

"There's always something that goes wrong in someone's life that results in them needing the foodbank - low income, perhaps their benefits are delayed or they have been sanctioned for not turning up the job centre on time.

"The basic premise behind a community supermarket is to offer either free or deeply discounted food. It's different to a foodbank because they deal with emergency provision.

"This is the next step up - it's about dependence support and building wrap-around interventions.

"For example if someone came to the supermarket at a difficult time, the team there would provide mentoring, they may help with a business idea, or they would work with you to solve a dept issue.

"It enables you to take it to the next level which is dealing with health and wellbeing - setting up cooking courses, sports programmes for example.

"It turns it from something you provide at the community to working with the community in order to support the community and try and take them out of the causes of poverty."

Feeding Coventry is working with both of the city's universities as well as a number of other organisations on the project.

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Re: Food poverty in Coventry to be tackled with community supermarket scheme

Postby dutchman » Sat Mar 14, 2020 4:43 pm

First look inside Coventry's social supermarket where you pay £4 to fill a bag

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Coventry’s first social supermarket has opened its doors to some of the city’s most needy people after a year-long effort to transform a neglected former community centre.

The affordable store held a ‘soft launch’ on Friday with the aim that it will eventually offer more than just essential items and be at the heart of community life in Foleshill.

Volunteers and staff, backed by donations, businesses and National Lottery funding, have rallied behind the project in one of Coventry’s most deprived council wards.

Launched by the Feeding Coventry charity in the refurbished former Foleshill Community Centre, the opening marks a huge effort to repurpose a decaying building that had lain empty for years.

The first visitors were able to stock up on items including fresh fruit and vegetables, tinned and frozen food, breakfast cereal, tea and coffee and toiletries.

Cllr Faye Abbott, a trustee with Feeding Coventry, was on hand to welcome the new members, who sign up to use the service, into the stripped-out and extensively redecorated building on the Foleshill Road.

Cllr Abbott said: “It looks absolutely fabulous and it feels great to welcome in the first customers through the doors and know that we are supporting the local community and local families who are struggling.

"It’s been all hands on deck this week but we’ve had huge support from volunteers, staff and local organisations, including GoodGym and a supermarket designer who helped with the layout. We’ve been busy, but it’s been worth it.”

Feeding Coventry aims to eventually offer financial advice to help address the root causes of hardship and plans to open up the building’s spacious main hall, former sports hall and other rooms for community use, restoring a long-neglected asset.

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