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Anyone used the Community Grocery Store?

(5 Posts)
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littleflo Sun 13-Aug-23 10:51:15

These were set up not just to help those in need but to prevent land fill and food waste.

I went for the first time yesterday. You are allowed 12 items for £5. It works out about 42 pence an item . Some items count for 2 but others you get more than one.

For an example for 42 pence there were
2 bars of Imperial Leather Soap
14 potatoes
5 baking potatoes
2 tins of sardines

The fruit and vegetables were really fresh and there was a huge choice. There are also items you can buy for reasonable prices and also a large box of free help yourself at the till.

Everything I bought was just the same, if not better than my usual Supermarket shop. I checked off the price when I got home. My £5 got me £11.20 of groceries.

There is a £5:annual registration fee, which is per household. So no matter how many in the home you can all use the card. There are no restrictions on how many times you can go.

I would be really interested in others experience of this type of store.

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Kate1949 Sun 13-Aug-23 11:09:47

We don't use this but we have the Too Good To Go app which is free. This week we had an Aldi surprise bag. You can't choose what you want but for £3.30 we got two bags of shopping with -
Two fresh chicken breasts in a sauce
A bag of bagels
Four punnets of fruit
A tub of fresh tomato and basil sauce
Two Romaine heart lettuces
10 eggs (with a long sell by date)
A bag of red peppers

Most has a sell by date of the day you collect it but most can be frozen.

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Jaxjacky Sun 13-Aug-23 11:13:34

My daughter sometimes uses Fareshare, distribution of near to use by date supermarket goods. She pays £5 for a large box of all sorts, fresh and pantry goods, mainly M&S and Waitrose.

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BlueBelle Sun 13-Aug-23 11:47:36

We don’t have such a thing in my area I m guessing it’s mainly in cities as mine s a reasonable sized town and never heard of anything like it here

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Blondiescot Sun 13-Aug-23 12:15:09

We have a community pantry which has just opened in our village a few weeks ago. You sign up for membership then pay £3.50 per week. For that, you get 10 credits which you can 'spend' on whatever you want from what is available - most things are 1 credit, but more expensive items such as meat are 2 credits. Once you've spent your credits, you can then help yourself to free fruit and veg and they also have a selection of sanitary products and pet food, which is also free. It seems very popular so far.

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