Category Archives: Blog

Three ways to pay. Only one of them respects your privacy.

Fareshares has been cash-based since it started, and the majority of payments are still made in cash. For a few years now, people have also been paying by bank transfer, and recently we also acquired the means to accept payment by bank card.

Now we are asking you to continue to pay in cash, please.

Cash is private. When you hand over cash, it’s just between us. There are no third parties involved. There’s no collection and sale of data, no profiling, no surveillance.

Cash is tangible. When you hand it over, you know how much you’ve paid, and how much you have left.

And cash is resilient. When infrastructure fails, you can still buy your food.

As a self-organised, decentralised collective, we support the direct, unsurveilled, unmediated, autonomous transactions that cash enables.

We support, defend and prefer cash.

We want cash services to continue to be available, and to be available they have to be used. If nobody withdraws cash, the cash machine will be closed. If fewer people pay cash in, the fees for handling cash will go up. It’s use it or lose it.

So please use cash.

Thanks!

Top 20 reasons why cash matters

A note on card payments…. The financial sector successfully lobbied government to make it illegal to pass on what it costs us to receive a card payment. So if you do pay Fareshares by card, please be kind enough to add at least the 1.6% the transaction is costing us, and if you can add a donation as well (which can be easily forgotten when you’re not paying in cash).

A note on bank transfers…. We provide our bank details in the shop, so if you have a mobile device with a banking app on it, you can set us up as a beneficiary there and then. Please show the shift volunteer that the payment has been made successfully. Bank transfers have the advantage of being cost-free.

We’re open through the holly-days

Happy holly-days!

We managed to stay open in the week leading up to Christmas, and it looks as if we have enough volunteers for Fareshares to be open at our normal times this, the last week of 2022 too.

The shop is pretty well stocked, including a nice offering of fresh seasonal produce including apples, kale, spuds, carrots, sprouts and squash.

One thing we won’t have this week is bread, as Damion’s flour wasn’t delivered.

Look forward to seeing you this week or soon in the new year!

VEG1 is back in stock

VEG1, the affordable and reliable source of nutrients in which vegans are often deficient

If you’ve been to Fareshares in the past few months hoping to get your VEG1 supplement, you’ll have found yourself out of luck. Sorry about that!

We’re glad to say we now have VEG1 back in stock, in 90-tablet pots (orange or blackcurrant flavours) — a three-month supply for one person — at £6.60 each, working out at around 7p a day.

If you haven’t come across VEG1 yet, it’s a nutritional supplement developed by The Vegan Society which provides an affordable, reliable source of vitamins B12, B2, B6 and D3, folic acid, iodine and selenium, covering all your bases.

You’re generally onto a winner health-wise if you eat the kind of wholefood plant-based diet that Fareshares helps to support, but you can still end up deficient in some vital nutrients.

In particular you risk serious health consequences if you don’t take special steps to make sure you get enough vitamin B12 which, with very few exceptions, is not present in plant foods. Likewise it is difficult to get enough iodine from a strict plant-based diet. And everyone, irrespective of diet, should be supplementing with vitamin D between October and March in these latitudes.

Another kind of food co-op up the road from us…

Set up during the pandemic, and now continuing to support people through the current crisis of falling real incomes, the Borough Food Cooperative offers you £20-25 worth of food for £4.50.

£20-25 worth of food for £4.50 at the Borough Food Cooperative

The coop operates “pantry-style” from the crypt of St. George the Martyr Church, on the corner of Borough High Street and Great Dover Street.

Members can choose from an assortment of fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as dry store goods, personal care products, and chilled goods.

Most of the food is donated by The Felix Project and FareShare (often confused with us at Fareshares, although we existed first!), as well as vendors at Borough Market and other local businesses.

Borough Food Cooperative makes a point of saying that everyone is welcome, irrespective of your location or economic circumstances.

They encourage you to pop in during opening hours and sign up. No paperwork required. They say: “More new customers means more people we can reach and less food waste!”

You can also volunteer for them if you like.

Borough Food Cooperative’s opening hours are:
Tuesdays 12:00 – 15:00
Thursdays 10:00 – 13:30
(and 13:30 – 15:00 by appointment only)
Saturdays 13:00 – 15:30
(and 15:30 – 16:00 by appointment only)

They say it’s usually busiest at the start of a shift, so it’s a good idea if you can time your arrival mid-shift.