The UK's First Social Supermarket Has Opened In South Yorkshire

The Community Shop hopes to help shoppers on welfare buy affordable food products.

The UK's first social supermarket has opened in Goldthorpe, a former mining village in South Yorkshire.

Gabriel Szabo / Guzelian

Social Supermarket schemes already exist in France and Austria.

"The Community Shop" offers shoppers surplus goods at up to a 70 per cent discount.

Gabriel Szabo / Guzelian

The products on sale are industry surplus - all within date, but unfit for sale for reasons like mismatched labels, or not being the exact weight as the box, reports The Guardian.

To qualify for access, customers must be on benefits, and live on one of several roads. There are currently 500 members, though the scheme is growing.

Gabriel Szabo / Guzelian

There is a London Community Shop planned for Easter 2014, and the scheme hopes to open 20 shops across the UK by the end of 2014.