InterACT Pantry Meanwood is a membership food club with a store at Meanwood Community Centre, offering local people the support of a reliable and good quality food resource at minimal cost.
InterACT Pantry Meanwood is part of the Your Local Pantry network
All of the items in the Pantry are categorised by colour to ensure that we make best use of the stock we have. For example, it wouldn’t be very fair if one member took 10 jars of coffee leaving none for anyone else! The way we categorise items is based on a mixture of retail price, volume, “use by” / “best before” dates and how popular the stock is with Pantry members.
The standard Pantry cost is £3.50. If you have a larger household (that is, three or more people age 16+ or four or more children) you are entitled to a PLUS membership. PLUS members can choose to pay £5 when they shop and take home more goods. Whichever type of membership you have, you will normally take home goods at least 5 times in value what you’ve paid.
One of the main suppliers to the Your Local Pantry chain is the national food redistribution charity FareShare. FareShare redistributes surplus stock from supermarkets and food manufacturers to other charities and community groups. Not only are they helping to provide hungry people with food but also helping to decrease the amount of food that is needlessly sent to landfill each year.
The nature of this supplier means that it can be a bit unpredictable. One week we might have pizzas and ready meals the next could be goat’s cheese and aubergines!
To ensure that essential staples are always available the Pantry reinvests all of its member’s subscriptions to buying stock. The Pantry uses local businesses to supply its fruit and vegetables and milk, ensuring members are able to access these staple goods as part of their weekly shop.
The Pantry stocks all the usual store cupboard favourites like cereal, cans, pasta, and also toiletries and cleaning products, as well as fresh, chilled and frozen produce.
The Pantry will never stock food past its use by date as this could be harmful to health and against the law.
The Pantry will, from time-to-time, stock items that are passed their “best before” date. Best before dates are about quality, not safety. When the date is passed, it doesn’t mean that the food will be harmful, but it might begin to lose its flavour or texture.
Every year in the UK we thrown away 7.2 million tonnes of food and drink, most of which could have been eaten.
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