Queen of Greens mobile greengrocer launches desperate appeal for new bus

The Queen of Greens mobile greengrocer, which takes affordable fresh fruit and veg into communities in Liverpool and Knowsley, has launched a desperate appeal for help to replace its bus.

Run by Feeding Liverpool and Alchemic Kitchen, Queen of Greens makes almost 40 stops across the region in areas with limited access to healthy food.

But it’s lost the use of two converted minibuses over the past few months, so it’s having to rent an emergency one to keep the service on the road, using up valuable funds.

Now a fundraising campaign has been started to buy a new (used) bus, with Aviva pledging to match donations to help reach the target.

Lucy Antal, director of Alchemic Kitchen, says the service is vital for lots of people who struggle to have access to healthy food and demand is growing all the time. The Queen of Greens bus is stocked up every weekday morning, with its greengrocers going at 6am to the wholesale market to ensure everything’s fresh on the day.

She explains: “We started out with about seven stops when we launched two years ago, then expanded to 12. Now it’s up to 39 and we’ve still got people requesting more. 

“We have a nursery in Kensington that’s asked us to drop off fruit every week, they’ve switched to us from a supermarket because they wanted to support a local enterprise and they also said ours was fresher.

“Queen of Greens provides a service giving availability of fresh fruit and veg to communities, individuals and organisations, where buying fresh food can be a lottery depending on where you live. 

“It’s not necessarily about income, it’s about the area and the environment you live in because maybe you’re somewhere you can put a bet on but you can’t buy an apple.

“If you want people to eat healthily and follow the guidelines that everybody always talks about you have to make fresh food more accessible. Fruit and veg is something we find people really want and need, and it helps them to eat better and improve their health.”

Lucy says when one of their two buses became too old to be fixed earlier this year, their two greengrocers Paul and Pete relied on a second one. But then an accident cracked its windscreen and that ended up off the road as well.

“We discovered it has a custom-made windscreen so that’s proved almost impossible to get replaced. 

“We’ve been everywhere, even Pilkington’s, and apparently the firm who originally converted it closed down in Covid so what should have been a relatively simple thing, to just replace the windscreen, has turned into a nightmare. 

“As a result we’ve been renting a bus which does the job and keeps the service going but that’s not a long-term solution, it’s quite expensive and we could be spending that money elsewhere. 

“Because we’re very busy we desperately need to buy a secondhand bus so now we’re fundraising and Aviva are matchfunding so they will double any donation up to £250. Even if it’s only a fiver they will make it £10.

“We’re providing a useful a service and we get some lovely comments so we’ll keep finding the money to rent the van because we know how important this is. But that is our rainy day money so we really need to buy a bus to convert as soon as we can.”

To support the Queen of Greens fundraiser, go to: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/the-queen-of-greens 

Or if you’re a school or business no longer needing your old minibus, up to 18-seater, you can contact Lucy on: lucy@feedbackglobal.org

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