No big Amazon deliveries coming in so a Thursday morning City Harvest volunteer shift was spent in Unit 28, Acton Park (the ‘ambient goods warehouse’) putting together Breakfast, Dinner, Snack and Vegan food crates from the pallets of store-cupboard food.

Expeditions into the upper reaches of the warehouse to locate specific foods were fun but physically challenging, utilising skills acquired at the Vauxwall indoor climbing centre.

Until I wrote this I was confused as to why they were called ambient goods. Ambient means surrounding, while ambience means the surroundings or atmosphere of a place. I thought maybe the term was derived from ‘ambulant’ i. e. foods that can be moved around and don’t have to be stored or confined to the fridge? My 1990 Concise Oxford Dictionary was of no help but according to yourdictionary.com ‘ambient-food’ is defined as: Noun (countable and uncountable, plural ambient foods) Food that would normally be stored refrigerated but has been processed so that it can be safely stored at room temperature.