A FREE cafe which uses food waste to serve up a weekly three course meal has new plans to give away food.

Organisers of Your Cafe, which meets frequently in Tang Hall Community Centre, have struck up partnerships with supermarkets and high street bakers to provide a free meal for anyone who needs it.

Although there are no plans to expand the service, since it was set up this time last year it has routinely been provided with food waste from Morrisons, Asda, Greggs, Costcutter and Nandos - and plans are being put in place to give food away to those who struggle to put a meal on the table.

Director Margaret Hattam, who heads up a team of volunteers, said: “The cafe is going really well and lots of things have changed in the last year.

“We have acquired deals with Tesco, Nandos and Morrisons, and Olivia’s bakery and cafe in York, who freeze their waste and give it to us.

“We also have deals with Greggs and Costcutter, so there’s six regular suppliers who give us food.

“We work with other suppliers, too, who give us food on an ad hoc basis.”

The cafe was supplied with tonnes of food waste over Christmas and whatever they failed to use was donated to a Leeds ‘sharehouse’ project, which gave some of it away for free.

Margaret would like to set up something similar in York, along with stopping a huge number of pumpkins from being thrown away once they have been carved at Halloween.

She added: “We want to run a York sharehouse where there’s a place that food can be collected and take whatever they want.

“It was such a shame to see a lot of food wasted this year.

“I’m hoping to start a pumpkin project this year because when Halloween comes around you will find that most are grown to be thrown away. This has been going on for years.

“What I want to do is work with primary schools and give them seeds to plant pumpkins they can make soups with.

The next Your Cafe takes place during half-term on Wednesday, February 22.

The following Wednesdays are booked at Tang Hall Community Centre from March 8 to June 14 and then from September 13 to November 29.

Anyone who would like to volunteer at Your Cafe in any capacity, should e-mail Margaret at admin@yourcafe.co.uk