Vital Kettering food service gets their five a day thanks to Derek's donation

You can't beat home-grown vegetables - and a lifeline Kettering food service has received plenty of them thanks to one man's donation.

Derek Muggleton has been growing his own produce at Burton Latimer's Baptist Church allotment for years, and usually supplies them for a monthly lunch club to use when they feed about 80 OAPs with a sit-down meal.

The lunch club couldn't meet because the coronavirus pandemic, but his fruit and vegetables continued to grow and he froze them so they could be put to good use.

And he's now donated several kilograms of them to Kettering's Corona Kitchen, which has been feeding the town's most vulnerable since March and has so far handed out more than 10,000 meals.

He recently handed over five marrows, 7kg of runner beans, 3kg of broad beans and 3kg of raspberries, and expects to provide leeks and parsnips soon.

The 72-year-old, who has grown vegetables for most of his life, said: "We would normally use the vegetables at the luncheon club, but for the past six to eight months we've not been able to meet.

"However, the vegetables have kept growing and we froze them so it's good to help the Corona Kitchen out."

Derek, who made the most of his quiet allotment in the first national lockdown when he was shielding, has also been selling his produce to residents of Meeting Lane to raise money for the Kettering Food Bank.

Alongside wife Pat he has also donated fresh vegetables to older home-bound church members as well as making and selling home-made jams such as gooseberry, raspberry, blackcurrant and chuckleberry.

The volunteers who run the Corona Kitchen have already used some of the vegetables in casseroles that they hand out in hot meals.

Organiser Frank Rodgers said: "We are very grateful to Derek and we've already used some of the vegetables in a few casseroles.

"It helps make our money go a little bit further.

"We're still providing a full meal at a cost of 80p and without donations like Derek's it would be more."

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