Berwick's Northern Soul Kitchen to launch Crowdfunder due to cost-of-living crisis impact

Northern Soul Kitchen has announced that it will be launching a Crowdfunder soon due a few factors caused by the cost-of-living-crisis.

They include the café on 19 West Street, which opened in June 2018, going from five days a week opening to three days a week after a quiet period and supply chain issues making the process “less predictable”.

The social enterprise was formed six years ago with the concept of intercepting unsold food and creating pay-as-you-feel meals out of it, educating people within the community to reduce their own food waste and providing an outside catering service.

A Share Shop was then opened on 18 West Street, but this was closed last month. A Share Nook has been set-up at the 19 West Street premises.

The team are also looking at changes that can be made at the café to help secure its long-term future.

Millie McRobbie, Northern Soul Kitchen project manager and co-founder, said: “We are doing this so we can still exist, rather than line anyone’s pockets.

“The current cost-of-living-crisis and a quiet summer for us meant we felt we needed to issue this ‘call to arms’.

“Since then, the response has been fantastic and we've had a busy couple of Saturdays, and we hope the Crowdfunder will be well supported.

“It's about helping us to have things in place to help our long-term future. For example, we will be looking to use some of the donations to invest in a proper coffee machine because more people are seeking this and so it should help increase numbers at the café.

“As with other Crowdfunders, incentives will be available.

“We used to know fairly accurately what type of food we were getting, the amount of it and where we could get it, but this is no longer the case because of supply and staffing issues.

“We had to look at whether it was viable to continue the Share Shop as it meant there were two sets of bills.”

She added that housing association Bernicia, which owns the café building, has been very supportive and the social enterprise received corporate sponsorship from Simpsons Malt for many aspects of the project.