At Beanies, we love fresh fruit and vegetables – and that means we hate seeing it go to waste.
We all know about the enormous amount of wastage that occurs across the food supply chain, from fresh produce being discarded because it’s slightly misshapen to supermarkets sending perfectly usable “out of date” food to landfill.
Given the time, labour and resources that go in to growing and transporting the fruit and veg that fills our shelves here at Beanies, we’re determined not to see it end up in the bin.
Each morning, any fruit or veg that doesn’t meet the high standards we maintain in the shop is put aside for charity collection. This means that those in our city who are most in need can benefit from a hot, nutritious and hearty meal from one of Sheffield’s excellent food charities.
Since the outbreak of Covid-19 in Spring 2020 we’ve been working closely with Mark Harvey, a Sheffield-based freelance photographer who has dedicated his time throughout the pandemic to transporting fresh produce by bicycle from Beanies to The Archer Project and Foodhall.
Mark writes, “From the beginning of lockdown, I picked up boxes of fruit and veg, bread, milk and other produce from Beanies two or three times a week. After taking a photograph to document the day’s donation, I delivered it to The Archer Project or Foodhall. They have each been supplying roughly 200 free cooked meals per day since the beginning of the first lockdown to vulnerable people. This includes those living on the street, those unable to cope due to age or underlying health issues including mental health, or families struggling to pay their bills, as all other cooked food outlets and charities in the city had closed at the end of March 2020.”
In addition to this, we also make weekly donations of fresh produce to Food Works and Open Kitchen Social Club.