Ketch me Eefje can

Nine experienced GoodGymmers assembled at the Chalk Farm food bank on a Saturday afternoon to lift, sort and stack loads of food donations ready to be given to those in need

It's pleasing to see so much food being donated and the generosity of local residents and supermarkets, however, it's a lot for Adrienne and a small group of local volunteers to shift and sort themselves. GoodGym runners flexed their muscles and made light work of this regular and satisfying mission.

After a meet and greet with Adrienne we divided into teams to:

• Lift then weigh the crates of food to track how much has been donated
• Sort into similar categories to make it easy to know what's popular and what to ask for next time.
• Remove anything past its sell-by date to avoid any upset stomachs
• Add coloured stickers to identify the year of expiry and make it easy to monitor
• Stack the crates back again

We saw most of the staples: cans of beans, soup and fruit; cereal; tea and coffee; ketchup and mayonnaise; rice and pasta and some more exotic donations including balsamic glaze, matcha green tea and sushi nori. Not sure how these were categorised!

Juicy Lucy lifted a 20.6 kg crate, sorted lots of juice and rescued an open bag of pasta; Eefje sorted ketchup from mayonnaise from caramelised onion jam and lots of food expiring in 2016 and 2018.

Some things didn't make the cut including pilchards expiring in 2008, hot cross buns and walnut whips just 3 days past their best (bravely devoured by Dave and Graham who had arrived fresh from a gardening mission in South London).

All this was wrapped up in just under an hour while we enjoyed a range of tunes from yesteryear.

Adrienne thanked GoodGym for their help and explained that they are raising money to roll out a project to support food bank users finding work. GoodGym will be back so watch this space and, in the meantime, check out the Chalk Farm food bank website for further details about what they do and how you can help.

Report and photos by Patrick