Seahaven Business Awards: Havens Food Cooperative in Newhaven named as environment category finalists

A food waste prevention project in Newhaven has being named as a finalist in the Seahaven Business Awards.

Havens Food Cooperative, a project of the Havens Community Hub, has been nominated in the environment category.

The project has redistributed, free of charge, over 108 tonnes of perishable food to the community. The Hub has prioritised people who might need support and provided over 14 partners' such as youth clubs, environmental alliances, schools and more with free food for their groups and members.

In April 2020, during the pandemic lockdown period, Havens Food Cooperative started putting together a team of volunteers who would visit supermarkets at night to collect and rapidly redistribute food that had simply reached its 'best-before' date and was due to be sent to landfill - creating more Co2 gas and wasting perfectly edible perishable goods.

These items could not be given to traditional food banks as their still-useable life was limited and most local food banks only open one day per week - the collected food needed to be redistributed within 24 hours.

Starting with only three local stores, the project grew until in December 2021 the final supermarket joined the cooperative of stores helping to prevent food waste.

Now, every single supermarket in the Havens Area - Saltdean to Seaford - on the coastal stretch are contributors to the scheme. Havens Food Cooperative believe this has prevented over 1 tonne of food from being wasted every week.

The project is about to start a 'slow cooker' set of lessons, as cooking in these appliances can save up to 80% of electricity charges as opposed to traditional oven and hob costs. Families without slow cookers can also apply to receive one free of charge from the Food Cooperative.

To find out more about Havens Food Cooperative click here

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