Located at Café de Montmartre, 34 Church Lane, Leytonstone, E11 1H, it will be open from 12pm-3pm Monday to Friday to enable residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to food that would otherwise be wasted.
Diana Korchien Fridge Co-ordinator at Transition Leytonstone, said: “Donating, volunteering, sharing – these are satisfying activities common to all human social groupings. Beyond simply reducing food waste, the fridge will play a socially important role in strengthening community ties; Transition Leytonstone are anticipating a steady growth in regular users.
“To meet this need, we intent to increase our storage capacity in the near future by installing a second fridge a freezer powered entirely by solar energy and have already raised a good proportion of the funds needed. Any monies offered to us by fridge users will go directly into our solar fund.”
Transition Leytonstone have been inviting all food businesses in the area to donate surplus food from September 17 onwards and for volunteers to get in touch with immediate effect.
Households can also donate unopened, packaged foods within their use by date or raw fruit or vegetables, which will help to alleviate food waste. The average household throws away £810 worth of food every year, and at the same time there are more than 4million people in the UK who live in food poverty.
It is estimated that 4.4million tonnes of food waste is avoidable and could have been eaten if better managed.
North London Waste Authority, who helped launch the fridge with Bosch and with support from national community fridge network charity, Hubbub, said: “we’re very pleased to be providing funding or this latest community fridge, the third we have supported in London and fifth in the capital.
“Community fridges really help communities reduce waste, provide access to nutritious food and save money, because, despite growing awareness of food waste, there’s always more that can be done. Donating any surplus fresh produce or unopened packaged food to a community fridge is one of the easiest ways of cutting down on wastage. We’d therefore encourage local residents to get involved by donating unwanted food, volunteering to help run the fridge or by using it – it’s a community resource.”
Transition Leytonstone will link the community fridge with its best before project and community garden, it is expected that before long, the fridge will be partially powered by solar energy.