NEW volunteers have been joining the West Somerset Food Cupboard (WSFC) as it continues to cope with rising demand.

A charity event hosted by the Rotary Club of Minehead and an invitation by the Church of All Saints, in Wootton Courtenay, saw several people step forward to join the team.

The food cupboard gave out 125 emergency food parcels in September, taking the total this year to 1,093, compared with 865 at the same time last year, representing a 26 per cent increase.

New collection points continue to be opened across the district with one in Minehead’s Co-op store and another starting on November 1 in Allerford Post Office and Shop.

Operations manager Ali Sanderson said many local groups, churches, and organisations were donating Harvest Festival produce and proceeds to the food cupboard.

She said: “We are very grateful for this opportunity to stock the shelves up for the winter months ahead.”

Among the recent support received was that from Butlin’s, which sent food from its on-site supermarket when the holiday centre was flooded, for it to be shared rather than wasted.

Ms Sanderson said the food cupboard was also grateful to all the local growers and producers who routinely shared their produce with the Local Pantry which operated from Alcombe Parish Church on Tuesdays.

She said Marshfield allotment growers were the latest suppliers to join.

Apples ‘of every kind’ had recently been shared out by the pantry, including the ‘Merchant of Ilminster’ variety grown in Porlock.

Ms Sanderson said Fareshare South West, which delivered supermarket surplus every Tuesday morning, had calculated that since the pantry network started two years ago in Somerset, 115 tonnes of good supermarket surplus food had been diverted from landfill to local dinner tables in the county.

The pantry membership was still at capacity, but there was a rolling programme of six months per household and a waiting list for those waiting to join the project, with details of how to do so available here.