A new initiative launches in Newtown next week which aims to redistribute surplus supermarket food to residents that would otherwise have ended up as landfill.

Not-for-profit community project Newtown Food Surplus will from Monday, October 25, make surplus food available to the public and community groups to eat through a community fridge and food boxes.

Vicky Rowe, from Cultivate, said: "We want to change that and drastically reduce Newtown's food waste. Newtown is already heading to become the circular economy capital of the UK and this project feeds into this.

"This is an environmental project, think of all the CO2 savings associated by getting that food into bellies as opposed to landfill but it also plugs a financial gap for people, win-win."

Newtown Food Surplus will initially operate from Cultivate's site next to Newtown College where there will be a food box scheme twice a week for people to collect their "pot luck" boxes., and a community fridge for chilled meals.

There are also plans for a community fridge, freezer and food box scheme at the new 'Waste Not' shop in Broad Street.

Cultivate is urging people to donate their time and become volunteers to help with food collections from the supermarkets and assist with distributions.