A COMMUNITY café cooked up a lunch for the mayor of Winchester using donated food.

The city’s first surplus food café, run by FirstBite Community Food Project, welcomed Cllr Jane Rutter in one of her final events before she steps down.

The not for profit social enterprise uses surplus food to run a weekly café and workshops in schools and sheltered housing at St Peter’s Church on Jewry Street.

The food comes from local donations and from the food charity FareShare UK, which delivers to them at 9.30am on the morning of the cafée.

Organisers have little idea of what is going to be delivered and their chef has to devise a menu and serve it up to more than 60 customers.

In the event’s first six weeks, The Community Café provided 456 meals, saving more than a quarter of a tonne of food from going to waste.

Liz Eastham, a volunteer, said: “FirstBite run the kitchen and the pastoral team from St Peter’s provide the volunteers. I have been volunteering since around Christmas and I love it.

“There is a buzz around the place and lots of regulars, young people, people who work in the city who come into lunch. It’s safe and welcoming. After the event all the volunteers have a meal as well, so there’s rarely anything left over.”

Sandra Drower, pastoral worker at St Peter’s, said: “There’s two strands to it: the serving food and the befriending. There is that middle group in the community who don’t have access to a nice meal out with friends who need support.

“There is a training aspect to it as well, to give a leg-up for some people.

“We have a number of older people and we find that with some folk they don’t really get a healthy meal normally.

“We want to eventually offer some kind of signposting here for other kinds of support.”

Catriona Young, a student at Winchester University, volunteers at the cafe.

“I really enjoy it, I am not doing it for my CV or anything - I’ll definitely keep doing it through my degree,” she said.

“I met a gentleman who recently just passed away and I made that connection from working here which I wouldn’t have otherwise.

“We get mums and toddlers, office workers, even nuns. It’s a real mix of people. You may come here and not know anyone, but it’s about building that connection with people.”

The scheme began in November and is being reviewed at points throughout its first year to ensure its continued success.