New community hub offering £5 bags of food

The food will be sold at half the supermarket value

A community hub offering affordable food to help those struggling through challenging times has opened in a Devon town.

Backed by the Feeding Devon Partnership and FareShare, it is free to join and members pay £5 for a bag of food - with items priced about 50% cheaper than supermarkets.

It is the latest in a series of food clubs in Devon, with others in Bovey Tracey, Tavistock and Sherford.

Cluna Donnelly, Ivybridge co-ordinator, said: "There are a lot of people who will really benefit from making that saving."

Ms Donnelly, who described herself as a single mum with "three jobs to make ends meet", added: "Families are having to make difficult decisions about what to buy, what to eat."

She said the food hub was different to a food bank in that it was not about "emergency care", but helping to prevent people getting to that point.

"Food is a huge expense and one of the visions of Feeding Devon is that no child goes hungry and that no child has to choose between heating and eating," she added.

"It's really about addressing the cost of living and helping people to stretch their money that bit further and acknowledging that food is a huge expense."

Ms Donnelly said she had seen an increasing number of people, either who could not work for health reasons or were on lower wages, "getting into debt" due to the cost of food, heating and school uniforms.

Run by volunteers, the hub's food is sourced from supermarket stock that would otherwise go to waste, Ms Donnelly said.

"We are a really big town, the biggest in the South Hams in terms of population so I think once it gets going it will be really well-wanted and well-used."

After signing up online, members can attend St John the Evangelist church every Tuesday from 14:00 GMT, when the cafe opens, with food bags available from 14:30 GMT.