In October 2022, The Lingfield Larder hit a fantastic milestone amount of 2,000 kilos of fresh food rescued and redistibuted. This was helped by our harvest festival, in which we redistributed a fantastic 350 kilos of fresh, locally grown fruit and vegetables.
The Harvest Festival was an accumulation of our regular surplus and local surplus. We gleaned local apples from community members and local businesses, including The Big Wood Estate and Lingfield Park Racecourse. Most commonly this was from apples trees that produce surplus fruit that would simply fall as windfalls, so residents have 'spare to share'. We decided to collect as much as we could carry, as we planned to take any we did have left to other local community fridges. We had some fantastic helpers with the gleaning, with the Beavers coming along one evening for some great fun apple picking,
Within our hour opening we had over 85 people attend and it was a fantastic festive event, people shared recipes and there was much excitement for fresh, free local food. We had some wonderful varieties of apples- eating and cooking, as well as the fresh food from our usual supplier of surplus, of whom we are continuously grateful for. Before we partnered, this fresh food would be landfilled each week.
We advertised by word of mouth and Facebook, and we managed to redistribute all apples that we gleaned, meaning guests all took home about 4 kilos of fresh, locally produced surplus fruit.
Lingfield Larder's Harvest Festival was a fantastic success. It showcases the value local produce has within our community. Apples are tasty, versatile local produce and we should be proud of the fruit growing in our gardens, sharing and swapping with others when we have bumper crops. We have had many people bring along bags of apples since, once they realise how celebrated and utilised when given the chance- this wonderful local food is.
Lingfield Larder runs regularly on Saturdays between 9am and 10am during term time, usually we have around 30-40 kilos of surplus, such as bananas, milk and tomatoes. This is surplus food is always free, we never ask questions we just ask you help us reduce food waste together. Our team is a group of committed local residents who all believe in reducing food waste. You can find Lingfield Larder on Facebook for regular updates.
If you're a member of a fellow community fridge and you'd like to chat to us about how we built relationships over a number of years to be able to glean this produce, and how we organised it, please feel free to reach out.
