How our Food Supply Works at Southampton City Mission

It's "Driver Dave" doing some of the regular shopping that happens so we can bring nutritional, quality food choices to our Marketplace Members. This shopping totaled £118 and was for Saint Mary's Marketplace. We had already shopped separately for Ascension Marketplace and delivered it earlier in the day.

The reason we need to do weekly food shops like this is that we buy subsidised surplus food from Felix (Fareshare) which makes up 1/2 to 2/3rds of the food in our Marketplaces. We then purchase food to fill-in the gaps so that what's available to Members is a nutritionally balanced food offer. This is because we have no control over what Felix gives us, it could be a balance of protein, carbs, fruit, veg and treats; contrastingly it could be bottled water, flavoured syrup and edible cake decorations.

Buying meat, fish, dairy, fruit, veg etc. so our Members have a range to choose from makes us different from most other pantries and food membership clubs where supplies are largely what happens to be in surplus that week. This makes our Marketplaces much better value, healthy, useful and effective for our members, it also makes them more expensive to run. But the knock on benefits are that Members feel valued by a quality, healthy top-up food shop, not just having to make do from leftovers; spare food; food waste, as if that was all they deserved. This in turn increases our Members engagement with the Marketplace as a community, a place that values and nurtures them.

We always shop at two different stores so that we don't impact their available stock levels too much. We do four shops a week, one for each Marketplace. The Aldi cashiers in both shops know Dave well now! 😊 They're really friendly, chatty and supportive and one of the managers gave us cut flowers to give away to Marketplace Members. Thank you, Aldi.