Beetbox Co-operative
We're providing people with access to veg without chemical fertilisers and pesticides harming the soil.
Being facilitator involves advertising, social media, organising pot-luck evenings and other events and allocating roles to different people. We’re a cooperative so it is run by everyone.
We got funding from the Student Eats sustainable enterprise programme two years ago, in my first year. I got involved after students in the year above, who’ve now left the University, won funding. I was then part of the core team, and became joint facilitator with Emilia last year. When they left I took over as facilitator. It’s been great, working with people in different Schools and from different years.
We work with two organic farms, Ripple Farm in Canterbury and the Wonky Parsnip in Chartham. The organic veg tastes so much better than supermarket vegetables.
Every Monday and Thursday, you can order vegetables for collection the next Thursday.
The farms deliver the vegetables to the main plaza on campus. This year, there’s been an increase in awareness about environmental issues. We’re getting 25 to 30 orders for organic vegetable bags a week, and last year it was 10 to 15.
People can bring their own bags to collect the vegetables or pay a deposit for one of Beetbox’s bags. We make 60p–£1 per bag, which goes into paying for things like pot luck events and equipment.
Volunteers do different roles – they might help set up the stall or pack it down, pack the vegetables, or help with the orders. Anyone can get involved – students, staff and the general public. You don’t have to be a student in order to engage. The whole point is to integrate it with the community. I think that university can be a bit isolating sometimes and it’s nice to be able to bring everyone together.
We have a volunteer putting recipes on Facebook. That’s really important because people don’t always know how to cook seasonal veg.
It’s important because it’s something you don’t see very much in our culture, in our society. Lots of things are based on a hierarchical model. It’s something I want to integrate into my life in the future as well.
It’s really important to me to be able to practice this within a safe space. It’s a really amazing thing that people can do and everyone’s contributing on equal levels. When everyone is able to input their ideas it just makes things so much more exciting and productive.
You can see it with the people who come and buy the veg as well, they’ll offer to help. People come in with new ideas, which keeps things fresh and creative.
We have pot-luck evenings in two cafés in Canterbury, and they’ve been an absolute success. Everyone makes and brings a dish of vegan food to share, and they bring their own plate and cutlery. There are a few judges and the winner of the best dish wins a free veg bag. Something that was a real vision with Beetbox was getting students to socialise around food rather than around alcohol.
Cooking for yourself can be an isolating thing. People might see going out to a restaurant as more social, but home cooking can be social as well. Sometimes people cook a massive dish for themselves and have the same meal all week. With our pot lucks, you can cook a dish and come and share it, and try others.
The evenings are open to the public and we get all ages coming. It’s a safe space for an open mic as well. You end up getting people you never would have thought doing a poem or singing. The community is very welcoming and accepting.
Beetbox is about the cooperative and veg box, but it can also be a platform for other things, such as film screenings.
I also want to get the volunteers to visit the farms because this is what Beetbox is all about. It’s all about reconnecting people with the soil and the land, knowing the patch of ground where the food comes from, rather than vegetables being something that arrives wrapped in plastic and comes from halfway around the world.
Lately, people are getting really interested in food sovereignty – wanting to know where their food comes from and how it’s grown.
I just realised that there’s a sickness in the way our society is functioning. There’s something that’s not right, that’s harming certain groups of people. It’s evident when you look at our system. I’ve discovered there are other pathways you can form. You can be part of our system, but in your own way. There are still so many things that are frustrating about the way our system works, but there are ways you can alleviate that.
I know how to organise people and coordinate within a non-profit business, which is something I want to do when I leave university.
Beetbox is my social life now, and that’s the same for a lot of the people involved. We already have the Extinction Rebellion protests going on, but the biggest protest you can do is taking action.
Lots of us are really frustrated, hurting about the ecological breakdown. This helps to channel that frustration, and the people involved feel they’re doing some good. We’re providing people with access to veg without chemical fertilisers and pesticides harming the soil, so it’s direct action.
University can be a bit of a bubble, and so being able to integrate with people of all ages, including the public, is great. Being part of a community who care about food and the environment socialising together, is really powerful.
If everyone who was protesting stopped and started providing platforms for people to access organic veg, alternative energy or different ways of living a lot of action could happen.
It’s helped me understand the world better, how society functions, in a simple way. Facilitating Beetbox has given me a wider perspective on life.
Because I have a love of farming and organic food, it’s what I’m most interested in. The community around it is so willing to help, and cares, and they really want it to carry on. Beetbox feels like a break from my studies and I enjoy it.
My lecturers, they’re amazing. They’re very good teachers and really care about what they’re teaching and about student wellbeing. I adore my course and feel fully engaged in every lecture.
My School [the School of Anthropology and Conservation] is a really close community, it stands out from the other schools as having a reliable network of students and staff. After I visited Kent and the School, I got a personal email from one of my lecturers saying why they wanted me at the school. I didn’t get that from any other university.
Our new BSc in Human Geography builds on and develops the topics covered by our previous degree in Human Ecology. Human Geography draws on the traditional foundations of geography and energises it to address contemporary issues including social and cultural geography and environmental and landscape planning.
