Supporting the battle against food waste
Our wonderful suppliers provide the grocery with perfectly good, surplus food from supermarkets, retailers and restaurants which would have ended up in landfill.
We stock fresh fruit and vegetables, canned and packaged goods.. and of course .. your daily essentials.
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​As a member you can come and shop for your whole family, giving you access to great food that’s affordable and helps our environment in reducing food waste.
How does it work?
Membership
First up, sign up to become a member of The Grocery at the Open Door - costing just £5 annually. Once a member, you’ll then have access to unlimited weekly shops for just £6 each.
Anyone can sign up to be a member. Your annual membership fee of £5 & your £6 payment per visit helps us to source food items and cover the transportation costs of our suppliers.
We want everyone to have access to affordable food and collectively reduce food waste. Your £6 shop will give you up to £25 of food value in return. All money we make is invested back into your grocery store.
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Where does the food come from?
Many of the fresh items in our grocery store have been sourced from food distributors, suppliers and local supermarkets. If much of the donated items didn’t come to us, it’s highly likely it would have ended up in landfill (even though it’s perfectly fine, and fantastic quality!)
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Why do items come to us?
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There’s lots of reasons why food is donated to the grocery store. The most common reasons include manufacturers packaging mistakes, wonky veg, supermarket errors with ordering, or food ending up too close to or just past its ‘best before’ date for them to sell.
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Some of the items that end up in the grocery store have recently passed their best before dates - but don’t worry, they are still perfectly safe to eat and often taste just as good! We make regular quality checks on items that have passed their ‘best before’ dates, and will never stock anything that has passed it’s ‘use by’ dates.
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You can find out more the difference between best before and use by dates here.
What items do we stock?
Although we will always aim to have your household essentials in - we rely mostly on donations from food distributors, supermarkets and food suppliers, and because of that, we won’t always be able to guarantee what extra items we have in store each time you visit.
This shouldn’t be an issue though, as with your membership you’ll be able to do up to two shops per week - meaning you can top up on items during your second visit.
We receive new deliveries twice a week and you’ll be able to see what food items and other stock we have for you by following us on Facebook & Instagram