Still Good Food won the Green/Evironment Award
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm joined by Ros and Kerry from Still Good Food who have just picked up the Green Environment
00:08Award. Congratulations guys. Ros, tell us how happy you are to be stood here with that in
00:13hand.
00:14Enormously. Really because we're often mistaken for a food bank. We are an environmental project.
00:21A tenth of the world's greenhouse gases is made up of food waste. So we are working towards
00:30depleting that huge number. So to get recognition to win an environmental award is fantastic
00:37for us. So happy.
00:38Absolutely. Thoroughly deserved as well. Kerry, I've seen on your website you save over 50
00:43tonnes of food waste every single year, which is staggering. And obviously why you've picked
00:47up this evening's award. Just tell us a bit more about Still Good Food's operation and
00:50how it works.
00:52So we receive donations from all the major supermarkets. It's food that has reached the
01:00best before date. So the supermarkets can't sell it, don't want to sell it. So they donate
01:05it to us. Previously it would have gone in the landfill. We gratefully receive that.
01:10We can then pass that through our two shops to our customers on a pay-as-you-feel donation
01:19base. Minimum £3. We're open to anybody. We're not a food bank, as Ros said. So we
01:27have all sorts of customers use us. And that food, rather than go in the black bin, gets
01:35passed on to people. As you know, it may have reached its best before date, but it's still
01:41good to eat.
01:43Ros, now a registered charity, started in 2017. Just give us a bit of the history of
01:49the business, the history of the charity.
01:52A few of us got together. We were actually appalled at the figures of food waste in the
01:58UK alone, which seven years ago was 4.5 million tonnes of edible food going into landfill
02:05every single year in the UK alone. We said, we've got to do something. A few of us got
02:12together. We got a council grant from David Nettleton. He gave us £5,000 from his pot.
02:21And we rented out a little shop on Elsie's Yard. We joined Fair Share. And it was brilliant
02:30from the day we opened the doors. People really embraced it. We had so many different types
02:35of people. We've now got a gleaning project, and we're working with local farmers, which
02:39is amazing, because we are in a very agricultural area. So to actually be working with the farmers,
02:45and they're contacting us now to donate their foods, whereas I was having to go around talking
02:51to farmers. So it's been a wonderful journey. And it's been so well embraced by the people
02:59of Bury St Edmunds.
03:01Fantastic. You stood here with the Green Environment Award winners in your hand. You've also
03:04been picked for the Highly Commended Award this evening. How do these accolades exemplify
03:10the efforts of the wider team as well? I guess there's a wider team beyond you two involved
03:14as well. How do they exemplify those efforts for you?
03:17We have four part-time members of staff, and we have 40, almost 50 volunteers. And I mean,
03:27we couldn't run the project without the volunteers. It's really great to be recognised for what
03:34we do, but it's great to be able to exist, and to help people, cost of living crisis.
03:43But it's just a pleasure, isn't it? It's a pleasure to be involved with the charity,
03:50and we've got some wonderful customers. And it's just spreading awareness, really. Like
03:56I said, we're open to everyone. We want everyone to know about us, and just save that food,
04:02rescue the food, and make good use of it. So, great to be recognised.
04:06Well, it's been a pleasure to hear from both of you about the charity. Many, many congratulations.
04:10Thoroughly deserved, and enjoy the evening. Thank you very much.