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Since March 2022 we have been running a Zero Waste Cafe project which ‘pops-up’ in locations around the island.

This is the result of a community food access survey, designed in conjunction with North Ayrshire Council, to determine whether our access to affordable and healthy food could be improved here on Arran.

The survey identified that the Arran community was interested in having more packaging-free food and locally grown produce available. As well as more options to access food in the different villages on the island.

This information was used to design a pilot project, a mobile zero-waste café. We received initial funding from the Rural Communities Ideas into Action fund and the National Lottery Together for Our Planet fund for the 2022-23 year. Funds were used to purchase infrastructure for the cafe and to run a pilot in two locations, Lochranza and Shiskine.

Following the success of the pilot, you can read more about this here, we received further funding from the National Lottery Community fund and North Ayrshire Venture Trust to run the cafe for another 3 years! The Zero Waste Cafe team consists of 3 part time staff members and cafes are run twice per week in locations around the island.

The café incorporates food from the food share, provides bulk goods in zero-waste dispensers, locally grown fresh produce and also offers a hot meal and refreshments. Sustainable food workshops are run at some of the cafes so keep an eye on our social media for details of these. The mobile nature of the café allows us to reach folk on the island who do not have these facilities close by and reduces the need to drive to access food.

Keep an eye on our What’s on page to see where the Zero Waste Cafe will be popping up next!

If you would like to volunteer at the cafe please visit Volunteer With Us to register your interest

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