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Eggcup is one of many organisations dealing with food poverty in Lancaster and Morecambe. Most people know about the two local food banks, Morecambe Bay Food Bank and The Olive Branch, which provide crucial, short-term support in a crisis. Eggcup and other food clubs use mostly intercepted food to provide longer-term support for people who are struggling or just about managing. There are community kitchens that, in non-Covid times, provide hot meals. And there are community gardens such as Claver Hill. Eggcup is an active member of the Lancaster District Food Poverty Alliance, which brings these groups together. They have developed [...]

Jay, the manager, and volunteers Jean, Adele, and Yannick outide the Morecambe outlet. Ever since we set up the hub in Lancaster  we knew we needed a similar place for our Morecambe members. The Morecambe outlet, Food-People-Community, is a joint project with Stanleys Community Centre, funded by Food Power/Sustain and West End Morecambe Big Local. We got a lot of support from Lancaster City Council Housing Department; their staff members Dave Hayhurst and Dave Ferguson (with help from Stephen, the shop's landlord) spent a month doing the clearing, joinery, counters, and painting to transform the space from a crowded antique shop to [...]

Where does Eggcup’s food come from? Most of it comes from FareShare, a national organisation that collects surplus food, for instance from supermarket distribution centres. We drive down to the regional depot in Preston three times a week to pick it up. Other food comes from local donations, such as the food we got when restaurants shut for the first lockdown, or when supermarkets shut for Christmas. And each week we buy some essentials such as milk, bread, and eggs through our buying cooperative. It is great that we can get food from FareShare, because we can connect to people who [...]

The meals that Eggcup delivers to vulnerable people around the area are made by the Lancaster and Morecambe College Catering Department, with puddings from Chef’s Catering Northwest. When David, our charity manager, first proposed the idea to Adrian (above) and Lindsey (below) at the College, they were eager to participate. The students had been sent home, the staff were doing distance teaching, the restaurant was shut, and the vast kitchens weren’t being used. Lindsey prepares scones. Adrian and Lindsey got together a team with their colleague Steve, some student volunteers, and College colleagues from Personnel, Health and Safety, Occupational [...]

The Morecambe Visitor gives annual awards to people and organisations who have brightened up our community, in all sorts of categories: Business, Health Hero, Charity Fundraiser. Eggcup has won the 2020 award for Sustainability. We have had a very busy year since starting in June 2019, setting up the warehouse, starting a new food club, and responding to the challenges of Covid-19 with deliveries to members, a new food delivery programme, and a Buying Cooperative to add some essentials to our surplus food parcels. And we are delighted to have the well-deserved recognition for the efforts of our hard-working team and [...]

In July and August, the warehouse was full with even more food than usual: bread, potatoes, carrots, milk, eggs, and lots and lots of pasta. The huge walk-in refrigerator was crammed with meat and cheese. Some of this was part of our regular supply of surplus food, but much of it is paid for by the Food Charities Grant Fund, a temporary programme from the Department of Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) to get food to people who are hard-pressed financially during the Covid-19 crisis. Eggcup delivered 29288 kilos of food for this programme in seven weeks – or the [...]

The Covid-19 crisis has brought lots more work to do at Eggcup: new projects, with new deliveries and pick-ups, lots more food to check, weigh, sort and package, more demands for data and reports.  Fortunately it also brought more volunteers. When lockdown began, many people on furlough were looking for satisfying things to do, and many people who would usually volunteers elsewhere found their regular work cancelled.  We got a remarkable range of people coming to Eggcup: a coach driver, a plumber, civil servants, a human relations consultant, students, teachers.  We also got help from members of the Big Kid Circus, [...]

Eggcup was set up to provide surplus food to food clubs in Lancaster and Morecambe. But from the beginning, the aim was to be flexible, to allow it to do whatever was needed. This flexibility has been tested in the Covid-19 outbreak, when food clubs stopped having social meetings, restaurants shut down, and supermarkets were besieged with panic buying, so that for some items they had empty shelves, rather than the usual surplus. I talked to Project Manager David France to catch up with what Eggcup has been doing so far during the crisis. Food clubs are meant to [...]