Turning Food Waste into Community Power: Glasgow Community Food Network's Story

Food waste is one of the most solvable contributors to climate change - and across Glasgow, a remarkable grassroots network is proving just that. Glasgow Community Food Network is working to build an integrated, sustainable food system where every community has equal access to good, affordable food. Their Food and Climate Action project is supported by our Climate Action Fund, which helps communities across the UK take meaningful climate action and involve more people along the way.

Nothing wasted, everything gained

Back in 2023 to 2024, we launched 'Composting for the Future' - an ambitious project to get Glasgow composting. Not just in back gardens, but together, as communities. The starting point was simple: healthy soil means a healthy climate. Too much of our food was ending up in landfill when it could be feeding the earth instead.

Growing something from the ground up

One of the things I'm proudest of is the network of community composting hubs we helped to establish. Through our peer budgeting project, local groups received small grants to get started - and the results have been brilliant.

Take FROGGS (Friends of Garnethill Green Spaces). Our community activator Jenny worked closely with lead volunteer Margaret to set up a composting hub that's now well used and genuinely loved by residents. They invested in a Jora composter, a homemade wormery, dalek composters, and a hot composter - creating a fantastic demonstration site showing how food cycles work in practice. Every bit of food waste dropped off comes back as compost that feeds the plants. Margaret's passion for climate and composting is infectious, and that kind of enthusiasm is exactly what makes grassroots projects thrive.

“We will always feed our wormeries for the sheer joy of it, but now food and garden waste breaks down much faster. This Spring we will take pleasure in fortifying our planters, fruit trees at the Viewpoint Meadow, and sharing with people who have contributed the scraps.” Margaret, FROGGS volunteer

We also commissioned a practical guide from Propagate on alternative methods of community composting and ran city-wide masterclasses on soil health. Our 'Composting Connections' peer network, created through this work, is still going strong today.

An apple a day

Then in September 2025, we held an Apple Day that perfectly captured what community food action can look like at its best. We brought together apples from our community garden, from orchards around the city, and from attendees themselves. Nothing was wasted: we made apple juice and then apple cider vinegar, created a community banner using apple offcuts as printing stamps, and - using Glasgow Eco Trust's brilliant smoothie bikes - blended fruit smoothies on the spot. We even printed and painted using inks made from vegetable peelings and offcuts.

What struck me most was how, when people come together, they bring such a range of skills and resources. That's when a genuinely thriving food system starts to feel possible.

Pumpkins, poetry, and learning for life

Our work with young people has been just as rewarding. Through a partnership with Friends of Victoria Park, Whiteinch Primary School, and The Summerfield Centre, we took pupils out into the park each season to watch the natural world change around them. They made art and poetry inspired by what they saw, and they cooked - pumpkin curry, pumpkin pie, and a Malawian dish called Mkhwani, made from pumpkin leaves. This was taught by Dina Likonde from the Zam'Munda project. Dina also showed them how pumpkin vines can be used as twine and the stalks as organic straws. The look on their faces said it all.

Come and eat with us

Throughout everything, our monthly Supper Club at the Heart of Scotstoun has brought families and individuals together to cook, eat, share skills, and - perhaps most importantly - find community. As one participant put it: "full of lovely company of friends and sharing culture through food."

For me, that’s what all of this is really about.

Find out more and apply for funding

Glasgow Community Food Network's story shows what's possible when a grassroots group has a bold idea and the right support behind them. Projects like theirs are tackling climate change from the ground up - and there are funding opportunities available now to help more communities do the same.

If you’ve an idea for an environmental project in your area, find out more about about environment funding in your area and apply.