By Helen Fay
An Armley based food pantry has expanded its premises in order to deliver more choice to its customers.
Yum, part of Armley Action Team (AAT) social enterprise, is a food pantry and community fridge offering affordable groceries, fresh fruit and veg and more.
Based in Gelder Road, Yum was formerly housed in a much smaller unit a few doors down, but has now relocated to a bigger unit which used to contain Bundles.
Bundles is another AAT project which sells affordable pre-loved clothes and toys for children aged 0 to 18, and is temporarily closed while new premises are organised for them.
The Operations Manager of Armley Action Team, Hailey Rochester-Argyle, was brimming with enthusiasm for the new expansion of the pantry.
The said: “We have a whole wall to be able to store more fridges and freezers – we have a fridge full of milk – we get a weekly donation from Arla of 80 four litre bottles to provide people with dairy.”
The extra space at Yum means there is twice the space on the shop floor plus a stock area to process deliveries and a delivery area outside. Hailey added: “We can sort stock, there is now a staff area with kitchenette so staff can make themselves a cup of tea.
“It’s a great environment to come and volunteer in as well, people can choose to work out front on the shop floor or in the back sorting the stock. There’s more room to move around for everyone.”
“It’s the same for the shoppers as well, there’s more space, it gives that dignity and respect just to shop and not feel like you’re being watched. It’s just fantastic and the feedback we’ve had is amazing.”
The expansion of Yum has been a passion project for the team at AAT. After nine months of fundraising and then getting everything in place and organised, a week of 10-hour days saw everyone involved clearing, sorting and getting the premises prepared, the pantry reopened just over two weeks ago.
Hailey told WLD about the three ways Yum manages to stock its shelves.
“The first way is that we do an Asda shop to ensure all the essentials like tinned goods and toilet paper are available. The second way is via Fare Share – we get one Fare Share delivery a week and if we can get more funding, we’d like to up it to twice a week – as we have 200 people using the pantry. Fare Share donates fresh fruit and vegetables and other items which are free of charge.”
The third avenue of donated food comes through the other strand of Fare Share via surplus food donated by supermarkets such as M & S, Tesco, Sainsbury and many others. The pantry even receives cooked chicken packs donated by KFC and sandwiches from Pret A Manger.
Hailey said “We have lots of ways that we get food to ensure we provide the biggest variety that we can for the community. Im very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”
Yum Pantry is also part of the Food Savers model, which means customers can sign up for free membership and then can shop once a week with their membership. Food Saver members pay £5 which gets them 15 points to spend.
Items on the shelves and in the fridges are worth different points so customers can purchase a range of goods. Another element of becoming a Food Saver member is that on joining, shoppers get the option to sign up to the Credit Union, meaning they get a bank account and £1 of their £5 shop goes into a savings account for them.
“Essentially they are only really spending £4 and the remaining £1 is going into savings that they can access when they want. We had one lovely old lady who cried on our shoulder because she was able to afford Christmas presents for her grandkids, so littlethings like that are amazing.”
More information on Food Savers can be found here.
Hailey added: “We have grown in the past year – we had our busiest time last week, with 68 people through the door on one day alone. We’re open four days a week which a lot of other pantries aren’t, so that’s a consistent flow of people who can only do a shop once a week, so spread over four days that’s a lot of people.”
The general opening hours are Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 1pm-3pm. Yum also takes emergency referrals from Armley Library, one of their partners. The system is that six emergency referrals are made in a six-month period.
Hailey added: “We’re trying to build resilience and help people back on their feet and hopefully transition them into becoming a paid member.”
Given Yum has now expanded its space and has more donations coming in, there is a need for more volunteers.
“We are always looking for volunteers, there are more roles like stocking and delivery in the morning, customer service in the afternoon, people to help close down and also drivers.
“We need drivers to go around a couple of hours a night picking up and dropping donations off. Young people are also welcome. Our volunteer coordinator Mark has set up a young people’s volunteering programme. We just couldn’t do all this amazing work without our wonderful staff and volunteer team.”
Yum Pantry has a Facebook page. It can be contacted by email on: armleyyum@gmail.com.
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