Cassi McAllister - Roundhouse centre manager
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00:00Hi, I'm Cassie McAlister and I am the centre manager here at the Roundhouse.
00:03And Cassie, we're up at the Roundhouse today because there's an initiative you guys are doing
00:07to make sure that no food gets wasted at the end of the day. Can you tell us a bit about it?
00:10So we've started a very small interim coffee shop service, just basically providing hot and cold
00:17drinks, sandwiches and salads and cakes to the visitors who are already coming here at the
00:23centre and it was very much in demand. So with catering, we obviously try to meet demand,
00:32but sometimes that's a little bit tricky. I said that in the post that I put out. So at the end of
00:38the day, sometimes we'll have a couple of bits of cake left or a couple of sandwiches or the odd
00:42salad. It has been quite low level what we've had left, but we also have really strict quality
00:48guidelines. So we only really keep our products out for a day to provide the best, freshest
00:57produce for people visiting our centre. So there was one morning and I was kind of like
01:02emptying a couple of sandwiches into a bin and I was just like, this feels so wrong in this day
01:07and age. There are people struggling. It's not always necessarily the people who you'd most
01:14expect are struggling. There are people in employment poverty. We've already done something
01:20with period products that are available free at the roundhouse throughout the centre and all the
01:25accessible toilets. And I kind of felt like with the food thing, we could do a little something.
01:30So that day I just thought we're going to have a no food wasted policy or initiative. And what
01:37we've been doing is our cafe closes at about six, seven o'clock, depending on what bookings are on
01:42that evening. And we just leave the food out in an area, in the welcome area where people
01:49pass by and they can just take it. If nobody takes it, we've been, we've dropped over to Palatine a
01:55couple of times. The other night we dropped over to A&E. Someone suggested that was a really good
02:00place to deliver to because they have no food provision or nowhere to access food late at night.
02:06And obviously we want to support doctors and nurses and maybe even, I don't know, people in
02:12the waiting area, who knows what it could turn into. But the initiative isn't limited to people
02:20who maybe only need it. It's just no food wasted. We don't care who it goes to. We just don't want
02:26to throw food in the bin. Absolutely. And we've seen some of the public already commenting on
02:30your post saying how great it is. Have you had good feedback? Yeah, we have had good feedback.
02:34Lots of people commented about it. And like I say, someone was giving us praise for it. And that's
02:38where the suggestion for A&E came from. The person in particular had had experience of working in A&E
02:44and being on shift without food or, you know, being extended on shift or whatever had happened.
02:49And that's where the recommendation came from. And we welcome those. If there's anyone nearby
02:54who wants to swing by at half eight at night and pick something up, you know, feel free to drop in.
02:58Absolutely. And just finally then, people will be wondering when the cafe is going to be completed
03:03and when there's going to be more options. Have you got any idea of when that will be? Do you know,
03:06it's a daily question sometimes, several times a day. At the minute, we are just running this small
03:11service. We're running it ourselves. It was just like an interim thing until we get a secure
03:20tenant. Obviously, we're not looking for that just yet. We're looking at that from
03:24the 1st of January. So if anyone is interested, they need to come in and have a chat about it.