Food bank Hoogeveen is satisfied with the new way of shopping for customers. Since November, the food bank volunteers have not been packaging the packages, but customers have been allowed to visit the shelves with a shopping cart to grab their favorite products.
“People can now search for whatever they want,” says volunteer Andries. “They don’t find out what they don’t like. We did that before and then they had to make do with it. Now they only take what they want.”
It results in less waste, because people only take things they like, but there is not only positivity. “We are now left with things. We have pots of black beans, people don’t know them and so they leave them behind. Fortunately we do exchange something, so it will be fine.”
When it was decided to stop filling crates and switch to customers doing their own shopping, not everyone was immediately enthusiastic. “It went well, didn’t it? But now it appears that this is going better,” says volunteer Arie. “It has now been running for about twelve weeks and we are very happy. The customers are also very satisfied.”
It is not the case that everyone is allowed to take unlimited items. “No, a volunteer accompanies everyone. Then they can take the quantity of a product that corresponds to the number of people in their family. That goes very well. People walk out here with full shopping carts.”
The concept is not new, the director of Food Bank Hoogeveen first saw the concept in Tilburg. According to the volunteers, Hoogeveen is the first and only one in Drenthe.