With its processing workshop, the Haute-Vienne Food Bank is fighting against waste

This weekend, Food Banks will still need donations, in supermarkets across France, to meet the growing demand from the charities they supply. But large-scale fundraising is not its only resource. In Haute-Vienne, the Food Bank collects food every day from storesand fights against waste, by transforming certain raw products herself in her workshop.

The premises installed in summer 2022 resemble the kitchen of a small school canteenwith professional equipment, offered by partners or purchased by the association. Sylvie and Lydie, volunteers, are busy cutting pumpkins (pre-cooked, phew!) to make soup, while Cyril, employed chef, prepares jam.

An anti-waste jam, with green tomatoes. Other volunteers are also gleaning the last fruits in the greenhouses of a market gardener in Condata few kilometers away. “Today, there is no longer any waste of food that arrives too ripe for fruits or too damaged for vegetables.“, welcomes Julie, salaried manager of the workshop. Thanks to the cold room, the frozen minced meat offered by certain stores can be transformed into shepherd's pie or bolognese. Enough to improve the ordinary lives of the people being helped.

Thanks to Lydie, the anti-waste approach goes even further. “I have a neighbor who has animals, so everything that should go to the compost, I bring it back directly for her ducks, chickens and geese!*”, laughs the volunteer.

The only concern today: finding new sources of supply. With the anti-waste sections of supermarkets, and above all with the disappearance of Easydis and GDA in Limoges, the quantities recovered are in free fall. The two platforms provided 20% of the fresh products collected by the association. To compensate, the Food Bank has entered into agreements with 3 market gardeners. Thanks to funding from the State, patrons and the city of Limoges, it pays them to dedicate an area to food aid. Enough to supply the CCAS and the social grocery store in Limoges.