The Boscombe Community Fridge shows that sustainable communal food stores can work.

Jenny Mueller, the founder of the Boscombe Community Fridge, explained how the project got started.

“I remember back in 2017 watching a documentary by Jamie Oliver about a community fridge in Frome which was filled with produce grown on the nearby allotments, and I thought that would be an amazing thing to have in Boscombe.

Jenny pitched her idea through the Boscombe Soup event hosted last year and received a £450 donation to get her project started. This funding, along with £600 donated through a crowd funding project and the Bournemouth Transition group, meant that volunteer-based initiative could get up and running.

“The project is run by around 20 volunteers who are the best in the world. They have come from all walks of life and are now the backbone to this project.”

Now all that was needed was the fridge. Luckily, Jenny had a massive breakthrough when, last December, they were given a brand-new fridge from German fridge manufacturer Liebherr for free, just in time for Christmas.

The community fridge is given half a ton of food a week by local supermarkets including the Tesco Extra near the Royal Bournemouth and Christchurch Hospital and the Southbourne and Lansdowne Co-ops.

However, in a bid to reduce their own carbon footprint, they would like to encourage local restaurants and supermarkets to contribute to the communal fridge.

“All supermarkets should open their doors to people like us to enhance their position in the community and help the local people. I encourage anyone in Boscombe to contribute to our fridge.”