Who we are

The Gleaners is the pay-what-you-feel community cafe based at The Hornbeam Centre. We use surplus produce — quality ingredients that would otherwise go to waste — to make tasty, plant-based meals.

We started our work in June 2019 and have been running the cafe daily as a small, independent workers’ cooperative supported by an amazing and ever-growing team of local volunteers since February 2020.

Our vision is to build an inclusive, mixed community eating space which is socially, economically, and ecologically sustainable. We work to play a small part towards building a healthy, sustainable food system in which people and the planet are respected from seed to plate, and communities have more power over the food available to them.

We want to be able to be here for the people and to create a resilient community that can carry itself and does not rely on capitalist structures that have created vacuums of care, resilience, and experimentation.

We are not-for-profit and are trying to not rely on grants. We exist within the Hornbeam Centre, and collaborate with the community centre on various projects, but are financially independent.

What we do

We work to promote a solidarity economy in Walthamstow Forest where rising house and land prices are driving up the cost of living, excluding many in our community from participating in both local cultural spaces and local economy, in a world where unhealthy and heavily processed food is often the cheapest and most readily available, reflecting a food system that is unequal, damaging, and unsustainable. 

Achieving our vision has meant utilising surplus food collected at the Hornbeam centre at the café and operating a pay-what-you-can payment model which helps sustain our workers’ cooperative.

We also offer space for groups to come and teach workshops, share skills, and hold community focused meetings.

Why do we work with surplus produce?

Running the cafe on surplus helps to reduce the environmental impact of our community, stopping good food going to waste and getting it where it should be: on people’s plates.

Today, 25–30% of total food produced in the UK is lost or wasted. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates such food waste as contributing to 8-10% of total man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

We want to be part of the solution, and believe in a slower pace of life that chooses low-cost, low-impact living and a deeper connection with the rest of nature.

We work with the Hornbeam to get our surplus ingredients from local supermarkets, food distribution hubs, and some organic fresh produce from our friends at Organiclea. A few other essential ingredients are bought new from workers’ cooperative wholesalers such as Infinity Foods and a handful of local stores.

Why do we run as pay-what-you-can?

We are a cafe built on solidarity, not charity, where community members’ participation is not defined by economic circumstance. We believe that the joy of celebrating food in a social context should be a basic part of civic life, and one which can break down many barriers in our communities.

In practice, this means running on a model where you choose how much you pay based on the particulars of your circumstances and experiences, towards building a more resilient, inclusive community. If everyone enters into this relationship with trust, and pays what is affordable to them — and we don’t ask questions — then we can operate in a way that is both accessible and financially sustainable.

We also have an option to ‘pay it forward’ so if you have access to greater financial means, you can buy a meal or a coffee on behalf of someone else who may not be able to afford it in the future.

Why are we organised as a workers’ cooperative?

Working as a workers’ cooperative means our business is owned by our workers, thus organising ourselves non-hierarchically and sharing power and decision-making through a democratic process founded on participation, inclusion, and respect.

We believe that working in this way is healthier for both workers and the communities they serve, and that work founded in cooperative principles will be key to addressing many of the societal problems we face around social, racial, and environmental justice, all of which require building a more sustainable and compassionate society — something which our dominating forms of economic organising fail to achieve. Our intention is to promote and embed through example such values in our community.

Working this way has proven to be stimulating, empowering, supportive, challenging, and fun!