Decision:
Mrs Sue Holdin, Director , Best Before Café, thanked the Chairman for the opportunity to address the Committee in support of their grant application.
Minutes:
Audio recording – Start of Item – Session 1 – 8 minutes 27 seconds
Sue Holdin, Dougal Muir and Henry Haldney, Best Before Café CIC, thanked the Chairman for the opportunity to address the Committee regarding their grant application as follows:
· The Best Before café was not for profit community café run by a group of local residents, who volunteer in different organisations around the town;
· Three of their volunteers also volunteered at the Letchworth Food Bank and therefore were aware of the need for this type of service;
· They belonged to the real junk food project, a charitable organisation trying to solve two problems, that of food waste and feeding those who would otherwise go hungry;
· The Best Before Café offered fresh food to those residents most in need on a pay you feel basis;
· Pay as you feel was a pricing model that enabled customer to pay what they wanted, or could afford;
· The Café offered surplus supermarket food which had been donated to them;
· The food was collected by volunteers and displayed in the style of a food boutique;
· Tea, Coffee and light snacks were also offered;
· Customers came from all areas of the town;
· They wanted to support diversity and unity by binging people together to discuss the issues addressed by the Café;
· They had so far placed one post on Facebook and this had reached 14,000 people, had 3,000 interactions and 132 likes, showing that there was great interest in this project;
· They hoped that the more vulnerable people would feel that they were helping solve the problem of food waste;
· Grant funding was requested to pay for liability insurance, leaflets and posters and café equipment.
In response to questions from Members Ms Holdin advised that:
· During the Summer months they would be based at Ms Howard Hall and in September would be moving to the Brotherhood Hall;
· They would be open each Wednesday;
· They were part of the Fair Share organisation, which had Tesco’s signed up and in October 2018 Waitrose would also be signed up to this organisation;
· The food bank offered dry and canned foods in parcels, where the client did not get a choice, whereas the Café offered fresh ingredients and dry foods that they could choose from and they would aim to offer hot food;
· The experience of Watford café was that there was no food left, however any leftover food would be utilised to make food for the following week or be frozen:
· They collected from the supermarkets the day before or the day that the café opened and therefore did not require storage space;
· The food banks provided a valuable service which supplied food to 493 people from Letchworth in the last quarter;
· The café aimed to reduce stigma and get people to talk about food waste;
· They had received grants funding of £200 from County Councillor Bloxham and would be applying for funding from County Councillor Hone and Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation;
· They would be targeting their leaflet delivery to Wilbury and Grange.
Members advised that Westbury and Jackmans should be included in the area to target for leaflet delivery.