The fridge was launched by Mayor of Newham Rokhsana Fiaz CBE on November 29th 2018, she cut the ribbon to open the smart fridge with delicious fresh food to the community!
The Mayor of Newham launched the first ever smart “Community Fridge’, which was trialled with the support of environmental charity Hubbub UK in a growing effort to tackle food waste.
The Family Hub fridge, donated by Samsung UK, is located at the Nutrition Kitchen at the East Ham Leisure Centre, and will be open initially 3 days a week to enable residents and businesses to share surplus food and for anyone to help themselves to quality food that would otherwise be wasted.
Food waste is a big issue in the UK. The average household throws away £700 worth of food every year and at the same time 4 million people in the UK are living in food poverty. Most food waste in the UK is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed.
Mayor of Newham said: “It is really an amazing initiative and very much ties in with our aspiration to revive our community sector to address issues of social isolation, bring people together and deal with increasing social inequality in our communities.”
Sandeep Flore, Director of Nutrition Kitchen Ltd said: “This super smart community fridge, one of the most advanced in the world, will support Nutrition Kitchen’s role as a hub of community food education and health prevention, knowledge and goods sharing and support a sustainable food system”.
About Hubbub
Hubbub is a charity which explores innovative ways to interest mainstream consumers in important sustainability issues, through different ‘hubs’ of activity: Food; Fashion; Homes; Neighbourhoods. Hubbub’s previous campaigns have included #SquareMileChallenge, the UK’s first large scale solution to coffee cup recycling, #NeatStreets to cut litter in UK cities, For Fish’s Sake (#FFSLDN) to tackle litter in the Thames, #GiftABundle to get pre-loved baby clothes back into circulation and #PumpkinRescue to encourage more people to eat the carvings from their Halloween Pumpkins.
Hubbbub also co-ordinate the National Community Fridge Network There are a whooping 250 Community Fridge Network fridges open across the UK, which on average redistribute half a tonne of food per month.
More information on The Community Fridge Network, including a map of fridge locations and advice for those interested in setting up a Community Fridge can be found at: