The Food Forest Project: Food Bank Field Kitchen

Aim: To raise enough funds to set up our food bank field kitchen.

In 2021, the Food Forest Project set up a small garden in Shepton Mallet that grew free organically produced fresh food for the local food bank. 

As demand and pressure on food banks grew, so has the food bank market garden. 

The project moved to a larger site in 2023, and now grows for four local food banks and hubs, and two schools in Glastonbury where poverty is high amongst students.

Unfortunately, demand continues to rise, and with it the need to build stronger provisions. The data that the charity has collected shows that with rising fuel bills, and lack of resource there are many food bank users that aren't able to process the food they've been donated. 

Therefore, we have decided to fundraise for an off-grid kitchen that can process the foods before being delivered to the food banks, and schools. 

The kitchen will be a simple unit run using off grid renewable energy sources, with a clean and simple kitchen built inside. Each week, when the food is harvested, it will go into the kitchen and be processed by volunteers using simple, high nutrition recipes, before being delivered to the food banks. Working with community partners, the Food Forest project will take food being wasted form supermarkets and from gleaning networks to supplement what we can cook with the food grown.

 The kitchen will also become a learning tool, and mechanism to help provision users understand more about how to cook the food the charity grows.