West Lothian community fridge membership booms as it…

West Lothian community fridge membership booms as it marks second birthday

A community project set up to help hungry families and cut food waste has celebrated its second birthday.

Over the last two years Whitburn’s Community Fridge has established itself as a core business in the town, used by more than 1,000 local families, and saved thousands of kilos of food from going into landfill.

The Community Fridge opened just weeks before the onset of the 2020 lockdown during the Covid pandemic and quickly became a vital lifeline for the most vulnerable having to isolate.

The idea behind the fridge was to provide low cost food and the save waste going to landfill. In the last two years it has saved 51079kg of food from going to landfill and provided food at no or low cost to the people of Whitburn.

The fridge was set up by the town's Community Development Trust and ran initially from their offices before securing its own premises on West Main Street.

Whitburn's Community Fridge marks its second birthday as a mainstay business in the West Lothian town (Whitburn Community Fridge)

Alongside providing food and basic ingredients the fridge also drew up simple recipes and provided hot meals to those shielding during the pandemic.

The project’s ethos is “Take what you need, donate what you can” and it provides access to free food for anyone who is struggling.

It has been supported from the outset by local supermarkets such as the Co-op and regularly receives donations from many others in the area.

Community Development Worker with the CDT David McDonald told the Local Democracy Reporting service he had no doubts demand would grow even when the pandemic was over, saying the Community Fridge represented a new approach to how a community treats food, and its approach to waste.

He has been proved right. Membership continues to grow, with 700 registered as regular users which when counting households this equals over 1,000 adults and almost 500 children.

The Fridge is one of 40 projects across West Lothian funded through West Lothian Food Network. The Network works to find new approaches to food insecurity. It also to teach people how to save money and cook on a budget .

Writing on social media local councillor Kirsteen Sullivan, a supporter of the food network and the Fridge from its conception said: “Happy birthday to Whitburn Community Fridge. Within the space of two years, the Fridge has become an invaluable community resource supporting hundreds of people at various points and for a variety of reasons. Not only that, it has allowed perfectly good, usable food to be eaten instead of wasted in landfill.

“A huge well done to all staff and volunteers, your work is really making a difference."