A cafe in the Isle of Man is waging war on food waste with a brand-new community initiative.

Bosses at the new Roundhouse in Braddan have pledged to give away all of the unused or unbought food at the centre’s cafe in a bid to help struggling residents.

Every evening at around 8.30pm, any leftover food items that would otherwise be thrown in the bin are now being made available for people to take home free of charge.

Centre manager Cassi McAllister said staff were keen to see any unused food put to good use.

She said: ‘We’re currently just providing hot and cold drinks, sandwiches and salads and some cakes to the visitors who are coming to the centre as it’s very much in demand.

‘With the catering, we try and meet the demand and sometimes that’s a little bit tricky.

‘So at the end of the day, we sometimes have a couple of bits of cake left or sandwiches.

‘And while it’s quite low-level what we have left, we have really strict quality guidelines and only keep our products out for a day to provide the best and freshest products to people visiting our centre.’

Cassie said the idea behind the initiative came to her one morning as she was throwing away a batch of unbought food.

‘There was one morning and I was emptying a couple of sandwiches into a bin and I just thought that this feels so wrong,’ she added.

‘In this day and age, there are people struggling.

‘And it's not always necessarily the people who you'd most expect are struggling. There are people [on the island] in employment poverty.

‘We've already done something with period products that are available free at the Roundhouse throughout the center, and I felt like with the food thing, we could do a little something.

‘So that day, I just thought we're going to have a “no food wasted” initiative.

‘Our cafe closes at about six or seven o'clock, depending on what bookings are on that evening, [so] we just leave the food in the welcome area where people pass by, and they can just take it.’

There have been some evenings where leftover food has gone uncollected.

But in her determination to reduce food waste, Cassi has taken any unused produce ‘round to some of the properties neighbouring the Roundhouse.

She said: ‘We’ve dropped some food over to Palatine Group Practice a couple of times, and the other night we dropped some over to A&E as well.

‘Someone suggested that was a really good place to deliver to because they have no food provision, or nowhere to access food late at night.

‘And obviously we support doctors and nurses and maybe even I don't know, we'll start with people in the waiting area, who knows what it could turn into.’

The Roundhouse, which began operations this year after a delayed opening from its original August 2023 schedule, cost £10 million, exceeding its budget by £3.4 million.

Planning permission is being sought to add a vehicle entrance following a dispute with the DHSC and Manx Care over access.

Currently, the Roundhouse cafe is run by an interim service while searching for a permanent tenant to operate the cafe starting from January.

Cassi invited interested parties to visit and discuss the opportunity.

She said: ‘We're running it ourselves for now which is just an interim thing until we get a secure tenant.

‘We're looking at that from the first of January. So if anyone is interested, they need to come in and have a chat.’