A community food club is transforming lives in one of the most deprived corners of Cheshire.

The ground breaking project at The Port Grocery in Ellesmere Port is tackling social and economic isolation, food and fuel poverty, loneliness and debt.

Every week the initiative, based at Trinity Methodist Church on the town’s high street, collects and diverts four tonnes of food, from the likes of Marks and Spencer, Nandos and Bookers, from landfill.

The food is then passed on in the community shop to members as well as turned into a free weekly meal for more than 200 people at a weekly Wednesday Welcome meet up at Trinity Church.

The project has grown from a five week pilot to a seven days a week operation run by 10 staff and 55 volunteers with the Wednesday Welcome becoming a lifeline for hundreds of locals.

Wednesday Welcome provides 12 hours each week of counselling sessions, access to a team of wellbeing coordinators from the 17 GP surgeries across Ellesmere Port, regular visits from Macmillan Cancer Support staff and free eye tests and glasses for rough sleepers and the homeless.

The Port Grocery founder Rita Lewis
The Port Grocery founder Rita Lewis

Founder Rita Lewis said: “We tackle food waste and food poverty but it’s so much more than that, we provide hope.

“We tackle social isolation by giving local people a place to come to get a hot meal and make new friends. We train up a wide range of volunteers including retirees who want to give something back, the disabled, those in recovery for alcohol or drug addiction or on benefits.

“The Port Grocery is a place where people can access debt, health and consumer advice without any stigma attached to it.

“The community spirit that has been generated is unbelievable, strangers have become friends, support groups for widows, cancer patients and diabetics have grown from it and the general talk around the town has become, ‘don’t worry if you need anything wait till Wednesday and they will sort it out for you’.

“We’re not perceived as the establishment, the council or Jobcentre, we’re seen as ‘those nice people who do the food’.”

The Wednesday Welcome lunch in Ellesmere Port
The Wednesday Welcome lunch in Ellesmere Port

Staff use two refrigerated vans to collect unwanted food from KFC, Pret a Manger and Tesco three times daily, totalling more than 110 collections a week.

The 300 food club members pay £4 a week and get £16 - £20 worth of fresh fruit and vegetables, frozen, dried, fresh and canned food from the community shop. Membership is open to all and there are currently 40 people on the waiting list.

Future plans include duplicating the ‘Welcome’ events at venues across Ellesmere Port on a daily basis and using fruit and vegetables grown by staff and volunteers on an allotment at the back of Trinity Church in the community shop.

The Port Grocery says it is keen to hear from any business within a 20-mile radius of Ellesmere Port with edible food that would normally go in the bin to get in touch so they can recycle it.

To find out more email admin@theportgrocery.org, https://www.facebook.com/ThePortGroceryCIC/ and https://twitter.com/PortGrocery.