Okehampton residents have been invited to attend a meeting next Saturday (February 12) to discuss whether the town should set up a community fridge.

The session will take place at the Ockment Centre between 12-1pm and will allow members of the community to raise their views on the proposal, which would see excess food from across the supply chain given away for free to prevent food waste.

Tavistock already has its own community fridge and several individuals and organisations have suggested setting up a similar scheme in Okehampton.

Orla Turner, development worker at West Devon Community and Voluntary Services, said: ’The Tavy Fridge is a wonderful project and we are delighted to be involved in establishing something similar in Okehampton.

’We see community fridges as a great example of a caring, sharing community at local level and are looking forward to meeting as many people as possible on the 12th.’

If the idea goes ahead, the Ockment Centre will house the fridge and the town’s supermarkets have already starting donating their excess food.

The Okehampton community fridge would be just one of hundreds across the UK which were set up as part of a project called ’Food Rescue.’

Emma Croft, food rescue project manager, said: ’Community fridges tend to be volunteer run so for this project to happen we need to build a strong team to take the idea forward.

’The different contributions required can range from temperature and stock checks of the fridge to volunteers that support the collection of surplus food for the fridge.’

The idea has grown quickly in popularity with fourteen similar projects opening up in Devon in the last three years according to Recycle Devon.

The North Dartmoor Primary Care Network Advisory Group came up with the idea for an Okehampton fridge just as Devon County Council was awarded funding from the National Lottery’s ’Reaching Communities’ scheme.

With the funding it became possible to set up a community fridge project.

Most of the food that ends up in community fridges is food from businesses that is surplus to requirements - for all sorts of reasons - from cancelled events to the wrong kind of weather - for example, supermarkets sell more salad when the sun is shining! Community Fridges can also take food from households; whether that’s home-grown / allotment gluts or if plans change and something isn’t going to get eaten in time.

On average, Community Fridges across the UK are redistributing the equivalent of over 1000 ’meals’ a month; saving businesses and households thousands of pounds in the process.

The fridge will be open whenever the Ockment Centre is open, with everyone free to drop food off or pick food up. Food safety is a careful consideration; for example, Community Fridges can only take cooked food from registered food businesses.

For those who are unable to attend the meeting but want to find out more about the fridge project, please get in touch with Emma Croft via [email protected] or call her on 07966 566435.