How Community Groceries work
Community Groceries work by providing affordable food and wrap-around support in the neighbourhoods that need them most. Unlike the average food bank, members can shop once a day at a fraction of the cost of the local supermarket.
For anyone really struggling with the cost of living and putting food on the table, we’re here to help without needing to meet any special criteria or provide proof of need. Inside every Community Grocery there’s a wide range of food, household, and toiletry essentials to choose from thanks to our partnerships with national suppliers and corporate sponsors like FareShare and The Flava People.
To become a Community Grocery member, all someone needs to do is visit their nearest store and let one of our team know they’d like to join. The team will explain how the grocery works and help them fill in the membership form. Membership is for a year and once they’ve signed-up they can shop right away.
“When my husband left me, I had nothing. Having to feed myself and my son, I signed up for Universal Credit and the person filling in the forms with me told me about the Community Grocery. I was so nervous walking into the Grocery for the first time, but the team welcomed me straight away and put me at ease.The range of food on offer was more than I expected, and having access to the fresh fruit and vegetables was a life-saver as they’re so expensive everywhere else.”
– Christine, Burnley Community Grocery member
How points work
At a Community Grocery, every item is worth a number of points. For example, a tin of beans might be worth 1 point, a block of cheese might be worth 4 points but 6 apples might also be worth just 1 point. From 23 November a new points system will make each point just 50p. Our team of volunteers help members add up the points at the till. This helps us pass on big savings to members with every shop.
Where our food comes from
We buy in some of our food at lower, wholesale prices and lots of it is donated by supermarkets and food suppliers who would have had to send it to landfill, even though it’s still perfectly good!
Food is donated to our groceries for lots of different reasons. Sometimes there are mistakes on the packaging, sometimes a supermarket has made a mistake and ordered too much. Sometimes food has gotten too close to or just past its ‘best before’ date and supermarkets can’t sell it but it’s still perfectly safe to eat and tastes just as good! All our ‘past best before’ products are regularly checked for quality. We’ll never stock anything that’s past its ‘use by’ date.
Find out more the difference between ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates.