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What is Community Shop?

The UK's first social supermarket

Providing a hand-up, not a hand-out.

Community Shop is an award-winning social enterprise, tackling the root causes of food insecurity across the UK with its unique model providing its members with a hand up, not a hand-out.

Our mission is to build stronger individuals and more confident communities and we help tens of thousands of families across the UK to live better.

Community Shop is more than food.

Community Shop consists of three interconnected spaces within one building.

Community Store provides dignified access to deeply discounted food and essentials, Community Hub delivers life-changing holistic support programmes, and Community Kitchen provides a café that enables people to connect with others and learn through food.

Community Shop’s unique model uses surplus products donated by retailers and manufacturers through Company Shop Group, ensuring that no product needlessly goes to waste, whilst simultaneously providing a sustainable support model for thousands of families each year

One store, three spaces

Community Store

Community Store provides much-needed access for members to deeply discounted food and essentials, including fruit, veg and bread for only 20p. Members are able to purchase a weekly shop for around a third of the retail price, and crucially are able to choose the items they need, ensuring they can shop with dignity and retain a sense of agency.

Community Hub

The profits from the store are reinvested into Community Hub which delivers life-changing holistic support and development through our 'What If' plan, empowering people to develop their own capabilities and deliver a positive future for themselves. These Hubs are essential for providing members with the personal tools they need to improve their own circumstances and address the causes of their food insecurity, in a supportive, safe environment.

Community Kitchen

To complete the interconnected spaces, each Community Shop has a Community Kitchen, a café that enables people to connect with others and learn through food, as well as providing home-cooked meals for the community with kids eating free every day. This kitchen space is essential to restoring a sense of community to an area with limited resources due to social inequality.

Donate your surplus.

Community Shop’s unique model is powered by surplus donated from stock partners through Company Shop Group, ensuring that no product needlessly goes to waste, whilst simultaneously supporting thousands of families each year to live better.

Find out more
Meet our amazing members
Donate your surplus
Video

Meet Victoria

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Meet Stuart

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Meet Michelle

Food & Beveridge Report

Our pioneering whitepaper ‘Food & Beveridge Report: The future of food aid in the UK’ demonstrates our decade of experience of delivering transformational impact for people and communities, and our recommendations to Government in creating a fairer, more sustainable food aid system in the UK.

Read our report

Our Community Shops

Our 14 stores support communities which are in the bottom 10% of the indices of deprivation. These stores are supported by the full infrastructure of Company Shop Group to unlock the value from Surplus and create positive impact for people.

Store locations

Community Shop membership.

Community Shop membership is free and open to those who live locally to a Community Shop store and receive a means-tested benefit. If you think you may be eligible, find your nearest Community Shop and contact them directly about membership.

Apply for membership