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08
Dec 2022
Stray Ferret Christmas Appeal: Making hearty meals from food waste
Like many people, Ian Booth’s job changed significantly when the covid pandemic began.
He had spent the previous year as manager of Resurrected Bites’ pay-as-you-feel café at St Mark’s Church.
In early 2020, along with the community interest company’s founder, Michelle Hayes, he had opened a new café at Gracious Street Methodist Church in Knaresborough and was in the process of launching another, at West Park United Reformed Church in Harrogate.
That March, they found themselves intercepting four tons of food waste each week and distributing it to people who were struggling.
Volunteers collected surplus food from supermarkets five days a week instead of two, and hospitality businesses forced to close their doors emptied their kitchens into vans and car boots.
Ian said:
Read more:
- Stray Ferret Christmas Appeal: 'It's our privilege to care for each other'
- Stray Ferret Christmas Appeal: Ukrainian refugees relying on Resurrected Bites for food in Knaresborough
Meanwhile, in 2021, Ian was back in the kitchen at the cafés, drawing on skills he had developed while living and working as a pastor at a church in France with his family.
That experience is ideally suited to the demands of running the cafés, which take their ingredients from the Resurrected Bites warehouse.
Anything that can’t be sold in the community groceries will find its way onto the menus: catering packs of rice or chopped tomatoes, bacon, couscous, chickpeas, beef, potatoes, carrots... In late summer, a huge volume of apples arrived each week as people found their trees were producing more than they could use at home.
Ian said:
When I visit Gracious Street Methodist Church one Friday lunchtime, roast beef and vegetables are on the menu.
It is delicious: hearty and warming on a cold day, a reminder of classic home cooking. Ian has exacting standards, though, and is constrained by what has arrived at the warehouse:
The tables are packed. Single people, pairs of friends, young families – they all share the space and make cheerful conversation as they order and eat.
The Gracious Street café is the busier of the two, I’m told, no doubt because it runs on the same day the community grocery is open in another room at the church. Knaresborough itself is a popular place to be on a Friday morning and some of the customers tell me they call in to the café after doing their shopping.
The cafés are not just aimed at people on tight budgets who might struggle to afford to eat out elsewhere, though.
Ian said:
Many benefits
Ian is a passionate environmentalist – one of the reasons for his involvement in a project that aims to cut food waste.
He has been surprised by the many other benefits people get from Resurrected Bites. Not only does it support people to feed themselves and their families with dignity by paying for their shops, it also helps people who might have been struggling in other ways.
Resurrected Bites has close ties to local charities and organisations. There isn't much that can’t be used in its cafes or community groceries, but when there is, it’s redirected to someone who can make use of it. 
Volunteers helped to reopen Resurrected Bites' cafes after covid
Approaching retirement in a couple of years, Ian is looking to cut down his hours at the cafes over the coming months.
At the same time, a new café is being planned in Killinghall. It means new volunteers and a new café manager will be needed – and Ian can only reflect on what a privilege it will be for those involved:
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