Social impact

The project, led by Dr Jane Midgley from the University’s School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, has found the café – where customers can pay whatever they like, has helped tackle loneliness, helped customers eat healthier and try new kinds of foods.

"The benefits of redistributing surplus food is usually measured in terms of the amount of food saved and the number of meals created," said Dr Midgley, project lead and a Senior Lecturer in Planning. "However our aim was to go beyond this and identify the possible social impacts created by the café’s opening.

"We developed an approach that could be easily replicated by other organisations using surplus food to measure their own social impacts and enable them to feed back to their communities, funders and the food industry itself."

A valued resource

The report, A Recipe for Success, highlights how the café has become a valued resource in the town by its customers. It identifies the unique environment its PAYF philosophy has created, its acceptance of people from different walks of life, the staff and volunteers, and the physical space which combined to create a distinctive atmosphere.

People identified how the café enabled them to care for themselves directly and/or for family and friends without stigma, allowing them to address food poverty and social isolation. The café activities created a sense of community awareness and support, while also offering opportunities to meet new people

Customers also described how the café impacted on their everyday habits such as eating a greater variety of food, eating healthier dishes and enjoying meals through the changing menu. These impacts are described by four distinct themes which reflect how and why the café is viewed as an asset within the community. These themes are What makes us unique, We’re more than a café, Changing habits and Social life.

Impact

The REFUSE café uses food collected from food retailers and manufacturers that would otherwise be wasted. The community interest company REFUSE forms part of the Real Junk Food Project network of cafés and activists. While food waste reduction was the central motivation in the development of the café, this study sought to identify its wider social and community impacts following the café’s opening earlier this year (April 2018).

The findings of the research and the final report A Recipe for Success have been released at tonight’s event (Wednesday 28 November) at the REFUSE café, which demonstrated the impact of the café within the town to local stakeholders, funders, and to the community.

The research was undertaken as a co-production project between Newcastle University and REFUSE CIC. This means that the research was produced together with people from the local community who documented the impact of the cafe on their own lives and the wider community, and helped to shape the narrative of the report.

Mim Skinner, the co-director of REFUSE said: “We’re so pleased to be able to work with Newcastle University on the study. When you run a busy social enterprise you rarely get time to stop and measure what’s actually going on in the space so it’s been a real help to have someone come and do that for us. It’s been great to read their findings.”