A Ruthin café is making sure good food doesn’t go to waste to support the local community.

Seconds café on Well Street, has taken the innovative approach to tackling unnecessary food waste to reduce the impact on the environment.

The café, operated by ReSource, has been running for nearly four months and is situated in Crown House which is owned by the Council.

Council staff recently took part in the Design Council's, Design Differently programme focussing on the circular economy around reuse and repair in Denbighshire with other organisations including Reuse Wales who helped establish the café idea.

The Design Differently programme encouraged collaborative working which allowed the Council the opportunity to support ReSource with some of their design ideas and vice versa. Three ReSource staff then used design thinking to create a savvy food surplus using community hub.

Jade Lee is one of the team: “The main bit for the café is that we will always take in surplus of foods so our menu can change day to day for visitors. We have sourced local where possible as well and when we buy in, we try to keep that as local as possible.

“We don’t let anything go to waste so where we can, we will reuse it and as well it keeps costs down for us and café visitors. We keep our costs as low as possible to run this as a community café.

"Our Team here deals with the Co-Op, the market hall here in Ruthin, we use Pips Vegan Cheese and we have had donations from Patchwork Foods which have been amazing.”

Seconds café is currently trading from Wednesday to Saturday and has a real Cost of Living supporting scheme for those who may struggle to buy out at the venue.

Jade explained: “We also do the pay forward which a lot of people that come in think it’s such a fantastic scheme. Any tips for staff that we get we pop in the pay forward little tub; it just means that anyone who comes in that can’t afford or can only give so much… it just goes towards that.

It’s not just food surplus the café tackles, books and games are also on the menu.

Jade added: “We put little events on, we do days with a certain game, or we also have a book club just to bring people in. We have had one event where people could come in and learn 1960s hair styles. A few people event rent the café so they can come in and do a certain workshop, events for the community.

“We have even hosted our first children’s party, the family involved already come in quite a bit with their young ones."

Councillor Barry Mellor, Lead Member for Environment and Transport, said: “Creating a partnership approach is a great way to tackle the many challenges we all face in adapting to climate change. We were grateful to have this opportunity from the Design Council that has helped us move forward as a Council in working closer with our communities such as Seconds Café to better tackle issues such as the environmental impact of food waste together.”