Five community food outlets open in Aberdeen

Community Food Initiatives North East (CFINE) opened five community food outlets (CFOs) on the back of the Veg Cities Aberdeen campaign. The charity runs 40 CFOs in total across the city to provide access to affordable and good quality produce for those who may not be able to visit a shop every week. They are located at community settings, such as community centres, hospitals, or sheltered housing complexes.

Visit the Community Food Initiative North East VEG CITIES local page

Aberdeen City

Credit: CFINE

This increase in CFOs was made possible with the recruitment and training of new volunteers and by accessing new community sites. CFINE is the Fareshare Grampian redistribution centre and redistributes surplus fruit and vegetables that would be destined for composting or landfill to CFOs as well as other community organisations, cafes, housing complexes and welfare organisations.

One new CFO, located in the Deeside Family Centre, is targeting Healthy Start beneficiaries who get 10 per cent extra for the value of their vouchers. Beneficiaries can also opt into free plant-centred cookery courses and recipes when they buy their fruit and veg. CFINE also started to stock the Healthy Start vitamins.

The other CFOs have opened on the back of CFINE supporting the Eat Well Age Well roadshows ran by Bon Accord Care in their sheltered housing complexes and the Bon Accord Care cook serving up more vegetarian food to encourage the residents to eat more vegetables. As a result, all of the six sheltered housing complexes run by Bon Accord Care now either have a fruit and veg stall in their premises or expressed interested in having one.

Sustain are encouraging more areas to launch Veg Cities campaigns, and get local businesses and organisations making veg pledges. Veg Cities is currently the feature campaign of Sustainable Food Cities, and is run in partnership with Peas Please.

29/07/2019