The Lang Toun Larder

Greener Kirkcaldy’s Lang Toun Larder – a community food pantry opened in August 2020. At that time, we were in the throes of the COVID pandemic. We had to make a lot of adaptions throughout lockdown due to social distancing, mask-wearing, public buildings being open, public buildings being closed and so on. We also worked hard to ensure that the pantry was a dignified response to food insecurity by offering as much choice as possible and involving pantry members and volunteers in decisions being made about the pantry. But we did it and this was due to the support and commitment of our amazing Community Food Volunteers.

We started with fifty members and to date we have worked with approximately 300 pantry members in that time who were also able to access support from other local services such as out Cosy Kingdom Energy Advice Service and Fife Council Welfare Support Team.

We also delivered two ‘cash first’ approach projects and supported thirty-nine people in partnership with Fife Council’s Putting People First Team and Kirkcaldy Foodbank.

To date we have redistributed 50,524kgs or just under fifty tonnes of surplus food, the majority of which was shared through the pantry. That is a lot of good food that was surplus or unsold that could have ended up in landfill but was used to benefit others.

Over the past year It has become increasingly difficult to access funding as well as enough surplus and unsold food to redistribute to pantry members. There are many reasons for this from continuing high demands for support to more projects accessing donations. Unfortunately, we are no longer able to run the pantry without sustainable funding. We will, therefore, be closing the pantry on 29^th August 2024

Our aim through the pantry, was to increase knowledge and skills alongside giving people access to excellent quality, nutritious food. We are still committed to this and are looking at new longer-term projects to replace the pantry. We’ll be back with a pilot project in the winter that will bring people together to access food and learn new skills. We continue to run regular cooking classes, a community meal, and a community fridge on a weekly basis.

We would like to thank our amazing volunteers, who have been instrumental to the success and running of the project – from the initial idea to collecting and sorting food donations and supporting members on a weekly basis. 30 volunteers have been involved in the project over the last four years, including pantry members themselves. They have developed strong and trusting relationships with pantry members and have gone above and beyond to support the project and our community.

Pantry members have been on a journey with us too. We are grateful for their support throughout the project and have been privileged to know and support them over the last four years.

Finally, we would also like to thank all our funders and partners over the years who helped make the project happen: Fife Council, The Robertson Trust, FareShare, Neighbourly (Aldi, Lidl and Sainsburys), Asda, and the Link Group.