Earlier this year, residents at Shotover View gained a vibrant community restaurant as Waste2Taste moved in.
The community restaurant serves healthy meals from food that would otherwise go to waste, thanks to local public and community anchor organisations following cooperative, community wealth-building approaches to local economic development.
From May 2023, Waste2Taste has been providing affordable and ethical food at Shotover View, serving residents and local people through a Community café, and providing a catering service committed to a vibrant, healthy and sustainable food culture.
The cafe is highly sustainable, using food surplus for its main ingredients, and inclusive, providing a pathway into work to homeless and vulnerably housed people through food-related mentoring and training opportunities.
The community café space and commercial kitchen is leased at no cost, under a cooperation agreement between Waste2Taste and a local housing association, bpha, which will enable Waste2Taste to grow as an ethical catering business.
How did Oxford City Council help this come about?
Shotover View, an extra care housing site in Oxford, approached our then Small Business & Inclusive Economy Champion Councillor Ajaz Rehman to find a suitable new operator for their on-site restaurant for residents.
Through the Owned by Oxford project, a grass-roots community wealth-building project aimed at addressing inequality in the city, council officers had strong links to local organisations and were well-placed to broker the right contacts when the opportunity presented itself.
Rather than seeking to maximise rental income by appointing a for-profit café operator, Shotover View recognised the deeper benefits to their residents and the wider community of appointing a community-led business to provide meals to their residents.
Our officers alerted the OX4 Food Crew to the opportunity, recognising their members’ unique position to meet the community benefits that bpha were looking for.
OX4 Food Crew member Waste2Taste CIC was chosen by bpha to take up the café at Shotover View, moving from their base at Oxford’s Ark T community arts centre.
Oxford Community Action, a multi-ethnic community group working in OX4, have also benefited from the developments and has moved into the café space at the Ark-T centre to expand their global food enterprise arm – OCA Kitchen.
This network of local public and community anchor organisations, working collaboratively and putting people ahead of profit, demonstrates the potential of Community Wealth Building approaches to generate new, people-centred economic opportunities in the city.
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