SEATTLE, Washington — Community “Freedges,” or free fridges, have popped up across Los Angeles and New York, making national news headlines. While increasingly popular in the United States and during the COVID-19 pandemic specifically, community fridges are not new phenomena. The movement was popularized in Berlin when a volunteer-run organization called Foodsharing began setting up community fridges across Germany in 2014.
Community Fridges
A quick survey of the Freedge organization’s website reveals that community fridges are still present on every continent with the exception of Antarctica. The organization’s global database includes a virtual map of Freedge locations, making it easy to identify clusters of Freedges in countries like Brazil and India. Many of the Freedges outside of the U.S. were notably set up before the COVID-19 pandemic, commonly between the years 2016 and 2017.
The Global Hunger Crisis
In 2016, approximately 37.2% of India’s population was living in absolute poverty and 15.2% of India’s population was categorized as undernourished. That year, less than 5% of Brazil’s population suffered from hunger. This is a dramatic decrease from 14.8% in 1990-1992, which has been attributed to the “Zero Hunger Strategy” that placed food security at the center of the Brazilian government’s agenda in 2003. Now, as COVID-19 continues to impact both countries, India’s already high hunger rate is expected to skyrocket while Brazil’s progress in combating hunger could unravel.
By the end of 2020, Oxfam warns that 12,000 people worldwide could die of hunger per day as a result of the poverty, unemployment and food insecurity caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. According to estimates from the World Food Programme, the number of people experiencing “crisis-level hunger or worse” will rise from 149 million in 2019 to 270 million by the end of 2020 as a result of the pandemic.
Community Fridges Worldwide
Foodsharing, a volunteer-run organization in Germany, began setting up “fair-teiler” or community fridges across Germany in 2014. But in 2018, Germany’s food and safety regulators began cracking down on the country’s hundreds of community fridges, causing many to shut down or relocate to more private areas.
As grassroots initiatives designed to fight hunger and curb food waste, community fridges have the potential to play an important role in decreasing hunger worldwide during the pandemic, which is exactly why these fridges are increasingly common in the U.S. Hubbub, a United Kingdom-based community fridge organization, has helped establish 130 fridges across the U.K., translating to over 780 tons of surplus food redistributed annually. Although Freedges has not published data on how many individuals visit each fridge, Hubbub estimates that more than 200 people visit each of its U.K. refrigerator sites monthly, with busy locations receiving more than 1000 visitors.
In countries like Brazil and India, the fridges have the ability to help reduce hunger levels. One “Geladeira Solidária” or “Solidarity Refrigerator” in Sorocaba, Brazil, has remained active since it was established in 2017. Volunteers have continued to post photographs of fresh meals and produce on Facebook. Volunteers also continue to share, add and exchange food in Brazil’s “Geladeira Comunitária Araraquara” or “Community Refrigerator of Araraquara.” In India, the organization Zomato Feeding India is working to create a movement toward zero hunger, which includes a network of community fridges.
Curbing Global Hunger
As community fridges continue to pop up and be utilized throughout the world, they allow individuals and communities to take small steps toward fighting and curbing hunger. These steps are particularly important as COVID-19 increases hunger rates globally. While food safety guidelines should be put in place for the fridges, the idea is an important one. When used in tandem with governments’ efforts to fight COVID-19 and hunger, community fridges can yield positive results and prevent the pandemic from propelling global hunger rates to unthinkable levels.
– Zoe Engels
Photo: Flickr