Pantry Partnership winding down operations in Salisbury
They've been cooking meals from surplus food for a decade
The founder of The Pantry Partnership in Salisbury says the project was about societal change.
The social enterprise has announced it is winding down it's operations after 10 years of successfully working with the local community.
Over that decade, over 10,000 meals have been provided for local people from surplus food.
But founder Fiona Ollerhead says it was less about the numbers and more about bringing the community together.
No plan, but two main aims
Fiona told us that when the project was launched 10 years ago, they didn't really have a major plan but they wanted to respond to the needs of the city with two main aims.
"One was to raise awareness about reducing food waste and the other was to try to bring people together around food to engage more with food and with each other," she said.
At the time, food waste wasn't on the agenda, Fiona told us.
"People were starting to collect, sort surplus veg and cook it up and soup kitchens and stuff. But it was very much a kind of ohh you can make a mucky soup from a wonky veg.
"I knew that there was much more that you could do with it and that and that you could actually be really creative with it. And it was a great way to save money and to eat really healthy and healthily and nutritiously."
Fiona added that the era of social media and people spending more time on their phones was beginning and that it was important to bring people together.
Looking back on the decade of serving the community, Fiona felt she and her team of 80 volunteers had made 'significant' social impact.
"I think we'd made significant social impact and sort of step change and then actually you're just adding to the numbers and that's not ever what we're really set out to do. You know, as a social enterprise, we're about social change."
Biggest achievement
Even though thousands of people in Salisbury have been helped, Fiona said it was not about the numbers.
She said that the greatest achievement was working with lots of different groups and charities that may not have normally worked together.
"Those people coming together and sort of showing goodwill and just having a really positive energy to make things happen, that's the biggest achievement I think.
"That's the thing that really strikes me when I look back and if you can kind of harness that power, then the numbers start to look good."