New community food shop opening in Chatham today
Social supermarket offers affordable choices and surplus food
Social Enterprise Kent is set to launch a new community food shop in the Pentagon Centre, Chatham, aimed at supporting people facing food insecurity.
Gina English, Director of Social Value at the organisation, oversees the initiative that bridges the gap between a food bank and mainstream supermarket:
"A community food shop or social supermarket is...to try and support people who are facing food insecurity.
"food insecurity sometimes doesn't look how people expect. People are working and raising families and doing everything they can, but household budgets are just being stretched too far at the moment, everyone is acutely aware of the raising cost of living.
"So the service we provide, we place ourselves between a food bank and a mainstream supermarket. It's to try and help people move away from food banks towards independent shopping, but then also to try and help people who might be falling down the food ladder.
"We have a shop, you come into that shop and pick up a basket, you walk around and fill it and you pay for your food at the checkout. So it's like a regular storebut the food is generally surplus food."
On who can use the service she added that while some may be referred by local support programmes, anyone can use the service without explanation:
"We try and keep it as affordable as possible. There is no criteria, there is no membership. It is a shop."
The store offers additional services such as volunteering opportunities, employment support, budgeting help, and digital skills training.