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01
Dec 2022
Where would you turn if you couldn't afford to feed your family?
This year’s Stray Ferret Christmas Appeal is for Resurrected Bites in Harrogate and Knaresborough. Please read Vicky’s story about the charity's community grocery below and give generously to support local people who are struggling this Christmas. They need your help.
At 9am on a Friday morning, Gracious Street Methodist Church in Knaresborough is already humming with energy.
The doors to the community grocery run by Resurrected Bites have just opened, but the volunteers have been here for well over an hour.
Amid the scene of boxes being unpacked and food being moved around by a dozen people, I meet grocery manager Carolyn Aitken, who tells me:
The grocery was stocked yesterday, she says, with tinned and packaged food, but deliveries of fresh and frozen items continue to arrive throughout the morning.
They mostly arrive with volunteers who have been picking up food from shops across the Harrogate district.
Some are fresh foods about to go out of date, but perfectly safe be frozen to eat later. Others are tinned and packaged foods which will last for months more, but their best before dates don’t meet the exacting needs of supermarkets.
Catherine Crompton is the warehouse manager for Resurrected Bites. She uses her professional experience in food technology and PhD in food science to ensure everything that is sold is still of the right standard, including being properly labelled with allergens. 
A delivery from Greggs is meticulously labelled before going on sale
As well as the new stock arriving, there is a steady stream of customers coming to the grocery. To be part of the scheme, each has gone through a registration process, ensuring they are in real need.
These aren’t necessarily people who are unemployed: some have faced a crisis, such as the loss of a partner, serious ill health, or a dramatic change in circumstances. Some simply can't cover all their outgoings, especially as bills rise.
Carolyn said:
Members pay an annual membership fee of £5 and then a nominal charge for each shop: £3 for a small household, or £6 for a family of four or more.
Food waste
There are shelves and cabinets heaving with everything you might find in a supermarket: tinned tuna and beans, dried pasta, rice, breakfast cereal, meat, fruit and vegetables, custard, toothpaste, nappies, cleaning products and more.
There’s a counter of bread, cakes and other baked goods – all considered not good enough for supermarkets to sell to their customers, but all perfectly fresh and delicious enough to eat.
Looking at the amount of food here, it's genuinely shocking to realise that it could all have been thrown in the bin.
Resurrected Bites has intercepted tons and tons of food waste since its first community grocery opened at New Park in Harrogate in October 2021, followed by Gracious Street in December. In total, 5,600 shops have been done by people who could not otherwise afford to feed themselves and their families.
Some of the people who rely on the grocery tell me they feel more comfortable with its model than with hand-outs, because it saves perfectly edible food from landfill - and because they pay.
Deborah Stocks began taking food parcels from Resurrected Bites during covid, when she was caring for her husband who had cancer. He died in late 2020 and, the following year, she began volunteering.
She collects donations from local supermarkets and brings them to Gracious Street on a Friday.
When we meet, she's sitting with her mum, Jackie Lowden, who tells me:
Many of the volunteers are grocery members themselves. There's a real sense of everyone pitching in to ensure it meets the needs of the community - and a very welcoming atmosphere to visitors old and new.
A big operation
But this is no simple set-up. There are 150 volunteers and five staff ensuring Resurrected Bites runs like clockwork.
They sort food in the warehouse, distribute it to the community groceries and cafés, check stock levels, help customers and ensure anyone who needs help can access it.
While Resurrected Bites takes plenty of tinned tuna, dried pasta and soup, it's often short on ingredients for cooing and baking, such as flour and sugar. Tea bags are plentiful, but instant coffee is not.
To fill the gaps, Resurrected Bites has to buy supplies every week. They often come from national food waste charity Fareshare, which redistributes items from supermarkets and other suppliers.
Retired nurse Jennie Naylor began volunteering with Resurrected Bites during the covid pandemic, along with her husband Paul, and now helps at the community grocery once a week.
I can't imagine opening my cupboards at home to find nothing there, while my children are hungry and I know I can't afford to buy anything. It must be incredibly stressful.
To know an organisation like Resurrected Bites is there to support you when times are tough must be an enormous relief.
Nobody in the Harrogate district should go hungry this Christmas.
It costs £300 to run the community grocery for one day. Please help to keep it open for everyone who relies on it.
Click here to contribute now.
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