'Food Rescue' is a National Lottery Reaching Communities project that works to support community fridges and larders across Devon and, in May 2023, they funded our community fridge which is managed by volunteers from Sustainable Crediton and situated in the library.

At the end of last year, Food Rescue evaluated the success of the schemes they had helped set up, including the one in Crediton, by observing and interviewing people using the larder and by an online survey.

The results were really interesting and a full copy of the report is available in the library.

In Crediton, the majority of respondents identified as female (82.5%) and were of diverse ages. The majority of respondents were also from Crediton but some people from rural areas nearby were using the food larder as well. 86% of people surveyed had up to two adults living in their household but only 28% of households had children living in them.

The results showed that respondents valued the community and social aspects of the larder, it was helping people supplement their food shopping and it was increasing awareness about food waste and sustainability. One Crediton respondent said, '[The food larder] is absolutely a good idea. No need to think I am taking food away from people who really need it. Quite the opposite, everyone benefits: the planet benefits; the local community benefits; and it points out how much food would have been wasted if the fridge was not there.'

Respondents were asked to share three words they thought related to their food larder and fridge. In the word cloud above, the larger text size indicates a higher frequency of the word appearing in people's answers.

It's clearly been a real boon to us. However fewer respondents indicated that the larder is supporting them to try out new recipes and to reduce food waste in general.

For that reason, the Food Larder volunteers are now working on creating a bank of recipes for the foods which we most commonly have large quantities of. They will be kept in the library, brought out when appropriate and available for people to take home with them.

We think the foods are:

 apples
 bananas
 bread
 broccoli
 carrots
 courgettes
 parsnips
 sprouts
 tomatoes

Clare Bainbridge is going to co-ordinate this project. She will put all the recipe ideas into a standard format and create a data base. If you have any reliable recipes that you would like to share with us, please email her with them. Her email address is:
clareincrediton@gmail.com We look forward to hearing your ideas.