Community Shop and Ocado Retail celebrate decade of community support with opening of new store

 Ocado Retail and Community Shop are celebrating the opening of another Community Shop together, marking a decade of partnership between the online supermarket and the award-winning social enterprise. The opening of Community Shop Fawcett Street, Sunderland, is the sixth directly funded by Ocado Retail, and the 16th in the wider Community Shop network.

The Sunderland shop is being opened near to where Ocado Retail’s UK Customer Hub is based, a call centre supporting over 1.2million customers on their shopping journeys. This latest store marks a significant milestone for the partnership between the two organisations which has supported more than 16,000 families through these six stores, which are located in communities that are within the top ten per-cent for food deprivation across England, and where people are experiencing the very real challenges of food insecurity every day. 

Having been a supporter of Community Shop from its inception, Ocado Retail’s first store partnership saw the opening of Community Shop Kirkdale (Liverpool), which opened at a critical time during the Covid pandemic. Since then, the relationship has continued to grow with support for five more stores in Bewsey (Warrington), Beechwood (Wirral), Knottingley (West Yorkshire), Stocking Farm (Leicester) and now Fawcett Street (Sunderland). 

As a direct result of this partnership, Ocado Retail and Community Shop has delivered significant positive impact within these five communities*:

• Community Shop members have saved over £17.6 million on essential groceries 
• Equivalent of 19 million meals have been created 
• 222,620 kids have eaten for free in the Community Kitchens
• 89,000+ learning and development sessions have been delivered in the Community Hubs
• 51,000+ ‘Cook Clubs’ have been delivered for members and their families 

Community Shop is a network of 16 stores and works in partnership with manufacturers and retailers across the grocery and FMCG sectors to redistribute surplus products that are in-date and safe to consume but are surplus for reasons such as mislabelling, overproduction, or seasonal packaging. Products are sold in-store at discounted prices, and profits are reinvested locally through a Community Hub and Community Kitchen, offering members skills training and affordable meals. 

By capturing surplus products and reinvesting profits from the store directly back into the community, Community Shop not only eases the strain on household budgets, but creates a self-sustaining alternative to short-term food aid, providing thousands of families with dignity, choice and the opportunity to build lasting resilience. 

The latest store opening comes at a critical time, as food insecurity reaches record levels across the UK. According to the Trussell Trust’s Hunger in the UK 2025 report, almost one in three children under five now live in households facing hunger, and nearly a third of food bank users come from working families. 

Against this backdrop, Community Shop’s model has never been more vital. Since its inception in 2013, Community Shop has supported over 104,000 families through this model, embedding resilience within communities and improving people’s circumstances for the long-term.

Community Store has saved members over £65.8m on their food shopping, whilst the Community Hubs have delivered more than 272,000 development programmes. Through its Community Kitchens more than 1m free kids’ meals have been served. 

Jonathan Wiseman, General Counsel and Chief People Officer at Ocado Retail said: “We’re proud to have supported Community Shop for over a decade and we’re delighted to have helped open this sixth store in Sunderland. We know the valuable impact the Community Shop will bring to local communities and look forward to seeing its success.”

Gary Stott, Executive Chairman for Community Shop, said: “We are immensely proud to have formed such a strong relationship with Ocado Retail and created a partnership that enables us to work together to support people and communities across the country who need that extra bit of help. Our goal is to provide people with a hand up, not a hand out, and without partners like Ocado Retail we simply would not be able to offer the breadth of support that what we do. Together we have not only created positive change for today, but built a lasting legacy that will continue to provide more people with the help they need to make positive changes in their lives and in their community. We are very much looking forward to continuing our partnership with Ocado Retail and extending our network of Community Shops.”