A few weeks ago I saw a stack of appetising pasta dishes in the fridge at the Lancaster Hub. I went to the Bay Leadership Academy in Heysham to find out how they were made. Maths teacher Paul Stubbins and Life Skills teacher Julie Sibbert told me Bay Leadership Academy has had a regular cooking event since 2019. At first it was just the staff, cooking after work, and then [...]

Over Challenge Poverty Week we have explored some of the issues related to poverty in the UK - the factors that drive poverty; the impact that poverty and wider inequality can have; how the reliance on surplus food has created a fragile support system ill-equipped to handle the current level of demand; and how austerity targets the poorest in society. But you may have noticed that we have not [...]

Do any of these things worry you: Not being able to get a GP appointment Needing expensive social care as you get older Not having enough money coming in to pay your bills Having to wait for critical hospital treatment Losing your home if you can’t pay the rent or mortgage Your children’s mental health and support needs not being addressed If so, you’ll be more worried to hear that [...]

In this blog post we tell the story of Eggcup member, Trustee and anti-poverty campaigner, Dusty. Dusty is not able to work due to long term health issues and lives on the poverty line, relying on disability payments (PIP). He’s a strong champion of the voices of those with lived experience of poverty, using his own experience and those of others to challenge the divisive stereotypes of ‘benefit cheats’ [...]

Our current food system is extremely wasteful- in fact food waste is built into how many large food businesses and supermarkets operate. In recent years surplus food created through this wasteful system has increasingly been channelled to food support services, such as food banks and food clubs like Eggcup. Initially this seems to be a neat solution- reducing waste issues for food businesses and providing more affordable food for [...]

In the UK, the rate of unemployment is at its lowest level since 1974 and employers are struggling to recruit. Some people on Easy Street say that people are only poor because they’re lazy and they like living on benefits. But no one who needs to survive the current UK social security system would endorse such a viewpoint. So, why do people need social security support? Well, here are [...]

It's Challenge Poverty Week. Let's make a stand against the inequality that causes so many in our community to suffer. We cannot continue to rely on already over-burdened charities to help the ever increasing number of people who cannot afford the basics. The current system is failing and only the government has the power to fix it. Join us in calling on our MPs to stand up for their [...]

More than one third of all children in the UK are living in poverty.  According to 2020 official statistics 14.4 million people in the UK were living in families in poverty, with 4.5 million of them in deep poverty.  It was optimistically estimated that by 2023 an additional 3 million people would be living in poverty.  But as 2022 tailspins out of control we can see that was a [...]

Guest post by Nina Osswald, Food Futures Gleaning Cauliflowers At this time of the year, the harvest season is in full swing. For one farmer in the south of Lancashire this meant that a field full of cauliflowers were ready to be harvested, cooked and enjoyed. Except, nobody seemed to want to buy them. It turns out that bulk buyers like supermarkets have very specific specifications, and only a small [...]

Around one third of all food produced globally currently goes to waste, contributing around 8-10% of the total man-made greenhouse gas emissions. This is a huge waste of energy and other resources like water, land and nutrients required to produce the food in the first place. As part of #FoodWasteActionWeek 2022 Eggcup have been highlighting different ways to reduce waste in our homes, but most of our work focuses on [...]

When Eggcup started out, more than two years ago, we knew we needed a modest-sized warehouse to store the food and keep industrial-sized fridge and freezers. But we didn’t plan on having a place to meet members – that would all be done at weekly food club meetings at community centres, church halls, and pub rooms, hired by those groups for the evening. David and the staff members set up [...]

When Eggcup members come to the Lancaster Hub or the Morecambe outlet to choose their food, they always find fresh milk, eggs, and bread. They may not all realise it, but these items are different from the rest of their shop. Eggcup was set up to intercept surplus food and distribute it to people who can use it, to keep it from going to waste. Some weeks there is a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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, [...]