You CAN help: Donate a can to help others this Christmas

Buy an extra can of food during your weekly shop at a Co-operative Food store and support ITV Daybreak’s You CAN Help campaign.

Fronted by Gethin Jones, the ITV Daybreak campaign aims to collect as many cans of food as possible in a week. They can be donated at special drop boxes in almost 1000 participating Co-operative Food stores around the country. The collected cans will then be distributed to people in need by The Salvation Army. They will be used to help young and old people from all walks of life as part of food parcels and food for lunch clubs, soup kitchens and drop-in centres.


You CAN Help is backed by Lorraine Kelly and Aled Jones. Lorraine said: “We want to collect as many cans as possible for The Salvation Army to distribute. It would be absolutely fantastic if we could manage to get a quarter of a million cans over the week-long campaign. I really hope all our (daybreak) viewers will get involved and help!”

You CAN Help collection points will be clearly identified at the entrance of participating Co-operative Food stores and will be in place from 26th November to 2nd December. Acceptable cans include meat, fish, vegetables, soup and fruit.

To find your nearest store that is participating in You CAN Help, check out the storefinder below.

Hints and Tips

• Food can only be donated via the collection containers in selected Cooperative Food stores across the UK.
• Food can only be accepted from the time of store opening on Monday 26th November through to closing time of store on Sunday 2nd December 2012.
• All food donated must be in an unopened tin can.
• All food donated needs to be for human consumption.
• All food donated needs to be within best before or use by date.
• Only canned food and no canned drinks are accepted. However canned liquids for cooking purposes are - For example: condensed milk and coconut milk.
• No damaged cans will be accepted.
• All cans must have their own labels attached.
• All cans donated must be have been purchased in Britain and passed UK food regulations.
• All cans must be donated by persons over 18 years of age .
• All other terms and conditions are as per itv.com/terms.

To see why this is so important, watch the following video by Co-operative Member of Parliament Luciana Berger:

Putney store re-opening after major refit

The Co-operative Food store in Putney will be re-launched on Thursday 29 November 2012, commencing at 10.00am. The store, next to East Putney tube station, has received substantial investment of half a million pounds.

 Please let us know what you think of the new store.

 73-75 Upper Richmond Road, Putney, London, SW15 2SR.  Telephone 020 8874 7953

Four new stores arriving in SE1

Four new Co-operative Food stores are preparing to open this month around London Bridge, SE1.

The shops, which were formerly Costcutters, are at the following locations:

• Great Dover Street, by Black Hourse Court
• Southwark Bridge Road, next to El Vergel restaurant
• Tower Bridge Road, by Tanner Street
• Mill Street, just off the Jamaica Road

The Great Dover Street and Southwark Bridge Road stores both have post offices which are being kept open even during the refit.

The stores will open after a quick rebrand as Co-operative stores but will all have a full refit in 2013, with an investment of £3m across the ten stores the Co-op is taking off Costcutters. Staff currently employed at the Costcutter outlets, and the two Post Offices, will be offered the opportunity to transfer to The Co-operative. 30 new positions across the four Southwark stores have also been created.

Committee member Martin Tiedemann has already taken up issues raised on the SE1 Online forum, including the conversion of the cashpoints, opening hours and better announcements of opening dates. You can participate in the forum here.

Martin said, "It's excellent news that four new Co-op stores are being opened in SE1. Combined with the new store in nearby Bermondsey, this will provide members in the area - particularly those who work around here - lots more opportunities to shop with the Co-op. I'm keen to hear what shoppers at the new stores think and will take up issues with management as they come up."

We are always looking for new sites across South London - if you have a site in mind, please suggest it here: www.co-operative.coop/membership/have-your-say/suggest-a-site/

Misplaced apostrophe aside, confirmation of the Great Dover
Street store's re-opening.

Funerals to Food

Timothy writes: The elected area committee for South London visited a range of The Co-operative businesses in
Bromley, Croydon and Sutton.

It was a good introduction for most of the committee who had previously not covered Croydon or Sutton.

The first two visits were within the boundary of the old 'South London Committee'. Coney Hall Food store and West Wickham Funeral Care.

We then visited the New Addington store, due for a refit soon, and then contrasted this store with the newly refurbished store at Addiscombe. It was clear the difference that a £700,000 refit had made to the Addiscombe store.

The final visit was to the store at St Helier in Sutton. Rosehill Food store was the largest store we visited (c. 15,000 sq.ft).

More thoughts on this visit from Martin and Clive soon.

Co-op introduces world's first Fairtrade BBQ

Martin writes: Summer's on its way and it looks like we may have some lovely weather this Bank Holiday weekend. Thoughts inevitably turn to barbecues, maybe the first of the year.

So it's great news that the Co-operative has teamed up with the charity Traidcraft to develop the world's first Fairtrade disposable barbecue. The charcoal comes from Namibia and is produced from bushes and trees like acacia trees which grows like a weed over farmland. So by removing these trees, the land is returned to productive agricultural use and also generates an income for the farmers.

The fairly traded charcoal will benefit around 1,000 producers and will mean they receive a guaranteed contract, payment of around three times the minimum wage and free equipment such as charcoal kilns. Also, Traidcraft will be helping them to start new community projects funded by the fair trade premium which will come from the sales of the charcoal products.

The product range consists of:

Fairly-traded Instant Barbecue with Stand £1.99 (3 for £5)
Fairly-traded Party Size Instant Barbecue with Stand £4.99
Fairly-traded Instant Lighting Charcoal 3kg £3.99

Get yours at selected Co-operative stores.

Where The Co-operative leads, others follow

Timothy writes: in 2000 The Co-operative was the first supermarket group to introduce Fairtrade chocolate on own-brand chocolate. In 2002 it converted all of its own-brand chocolate to Fairtrade.

The Co-operative chocolate all comes from a co-operative of farmers in Ghana.

So, where the Co-operative leads, others follow! It has been announced by the famous chocolate company Cadbury that they are converting all of their Dairy Milk Chocolate supply from Autumn 2009.

Just like The Co-operative chocolate, Cadbury Dairy Milk will be sourced from Ghana too.

Fairtrade event in Brixton

Martin writes: Following on from yesterday's news that the Co-op is stocking Fairtrade olive oil from Palestine, there will be an event this evening in Lambeth Town Hall, Brixton at 6pm with Taysir Arabasi, director of Zaytoun which imports the oil. He will talk about the importance on livelihoods of the olive oil sector in Palestine.

For further info, contact jcurrie@lambeth.gov.uk

Fairtrade Fortnight begins

Martin writes: Yesterday I attended the launch of Fairtrade Fortnight on the South Bank. It was great to taste all the Fairtrade products, hear from producers from developing countries on why Fairtrade matters to them, and watch young people, local residents and tourists alike learn about Fairtrade. The Co-op had a big presence, as the leading high street supporter of Fairtrade, with our hard-working staff handing out smoothies and signing up new members. Brad Hill, the Co-operative Group's Fairtrade Manager, spoke about the Co-op's ongoing commitment to the movement and some exciting new product launches.

Today one of those product launches took place in North London, with Mike Foster MP, an International Development minister, on hand to promote the first-ever Fairtrade olive oil, made in Palestine. As the Mirror reported today, the Co-op is the only major supermarket that will be stocking the olive oil - we even got praise from the Prime Minister!