London highlights food waste

Food Waste in the UK

On the 16 December in London, passers-by will be fed with food that has been made with produce which would normally have been thrown away.

Up to 5000 passers-by in central London are to be served hot soups made from "ugly" vegetables, sandwiches and fruit smoothies in a free feast of "Biblical proportions."

The lunchtime banquet in Trafalgar Square next month, 'Feeding the 5000', will be made of food that would otherwise be thrown away and is being held to highlight the social and environmental costs of food waste, the British paper The Independent reports.

Waste

Each year, the UK throws away 8.3 million tonnes. That equates to a mountain of leftovers, enough to fill 4700 Olympic-sized swimming pools, says the government's anti-waste arm, Wrap. Of this food, 5.3 million tonnes could have been eaten.

The confusion over food tends to be related to food labelling which people fail to understand due to different definitions. As a recent survey suggests, half of people do not understand the differences between them.

16 December event

Author Tristram Stuart has organised the event on Wednesday 16 December, with the help of Save the Children, ActionAid, This is Rubbish, and FareShare which, redistributes food to the needy.

According to FareShare, four million people in the UK cannot afford a healthy diet. Meanwhile half of all food in Britain is wasted between farm and fork with households throwing out a quarter of their food shopping. That waste costs the average home GBP£480 a year, enough to save three children from malnutrition.

"We all know how easy it is to over-shop ending up binning food we don't end up eating," said another supporter, Rosie Boycott, chair of the London Food Board.

"Making food go further helps us rediscover the pleasures of home cooking and saves pounds off the weekly food bill. Feeding the 5000 will bring to life the idea that all food is good food, and every morsel of it is too good to waste."

The organisers are expecting to cook one tonne of carrots, one tonne of potatoes, one tonne of parsnips, and three-quarters of a tonne of onion... so vegetable soup is expected to be on the menu. While smoothies will be made from bananas, grapes, and apples

If fewer than 5000 people turn up, leftover food will be distributed by FareShare to homeless shelters and other needy people.

A spokeswoman said: "None of it will go to waste."

Love Food Hate Waste

Love Food Hate Waste is the ‘Waste Not Want Not' of the modern day. It provides handy tips, advice and recipes for leftovers to help everyone waste less food.

It gives you information such as the fact if we all stop wasting food that could have been eaten, the CO2 impact would be the equivalent of taking one in four cars off the road.

According to the site, throwing away food can be grouped into the categories:

• Cooking or preparing too much

• Not using food in time

Related News:

Sustaining the food chain - Processing |Do you understand food labelling? |Issue 2 - Food Processing/Machinery |Succeeding in tough times - Food Ingredients

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