The groups working hard to fight food waste

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It’s zero waste week! In February, we launched a marketing campaign with our founder and private finance professional Jasmine Birtles to legalise Freeganism within the UK. You possibly can signal our petition and assist struggle meals waste here.

Freeganism is outlined as: “Another philosophy for dwelling, based mostly on minimal participation in capitalism and standard financial practices, in addition to restricted consumption of capitalistic assets.”

Put merely, Freeganism goals to finish the waste of meals and assets by giant firms. For instance, it is vitally seemingly your native grocery store throws loads of recent fruit and veg away weekly as a result of it’s previous the ‘use by’ date. However in actuality, many of the meals and objects thrown away are nonetheless pretty much as good as ever.

With the price of dwelling at an all-time excessive, and inflation the biggest it has been in 30 years, many individuals will battle to feed their households. Meals poverty was already on the rise because of the struggles of the pandemic, and Freeganism could be one method to alleviate this battle.

However it would take greater than legalising Freeganism to cease meals waste and assist feed our nation. That’s why we’ve put collectively an inventory of among the teams across the UK working onerous to struggle meals waste and put meals on the desk for a lot of households throughout this tough time.

 

FareShare

Maybe one of many largest and most well-known teams with a mission to struggle meals poverty is FareShare. They work nationally to redistribute meals, and they’re made up of 18 unbiased organisations throughout the UK. They take the highest quality surplus meals from all corners of the meals business and distribute it to greater than 10,500 frontline group teams.

These teams embody faculty breakfast golf equipment, homeless shelters, group cafes and older folks’s lunch golf equipment. Each single week, FareShare present sufficient meals to make a million meals for weak folks.

England Worldwide footballer Marcus Rashford has additionally been an envoy of FareShare since March 2020. Since he started, he has not solely raised consciousness of kid starvation throughout the UK, however he has raised sufficient cash to allow Fareshare to have delivered 21 million meals.

Yow will discover out extra about FareShare here.

 

WRAP

You could not have heard of WRAP, however you’ll most positively have heard of their well-known Love Food Hate Waste marketing campaign, launched in 2007. This can be a well-known marketing campaign which raises consciousness of meals waste and supplies steps on how people can cut back their very own meals waste.

They consider in difficult attitudes, behaviours and mindsets to make sure everybody is aware of the worth of meals. They encourage folks to solely purchase what they want, eat what they purchase, and retailer their meals appropriately to forestall waste.

You possibly can learn extra about WRAP and their campaigns to struggle meals waste here.

 

Meals Works Sheffield

Food Works Sheffield declare to save lots of 500 tonnes of meals a yr from going to landfill – an unbelievable feat. To do that, they use high quality surplus and domestically grown components to make scrumptious food and drinks. In addition they gather and share this surplus for his or her market, the place you’ll be able to gather a field of meals every day.

Via their very own farm, in addition they help in native meals manufacturing and participate in group rising. They state the significance of rising meals domestically, not solely to cut back the necessity for transportation, storage and preservatives, however to enhance the meals cycle.

Yow will discover out extra about Meals Works Sheffield here.

 

The Felix Challenge

Arrange in 2016, The Felix Project is a London-based redistribution charity which goals to sort out meals waste and meals poverty. They rescue good, nutritious surplus meals that can not be bought and would in any other case go to waste. The nice factor is, they delight themselves on getting numerous recent fruit and greens, salads, meat, fish and baked items.

They obtain meals from over 539 suppliers. These suppliers embody supermarkets, wholesalers, farms and eating places. It’s then sorted and delivered to a whopping 1,00 charities, faculties and vacation programmes throughout the capital metropolis. Meals from the meals business which might have in any other case gone to waste is as an alternative given to weak folks, homeless folks and individuals who can not afford to purchase common meals.

Learn extra about The Felix Challenge’s work here.

 

FoodCycle

FoodCycle have had a imaginative and prescient to make meals poverty and meals waste a factor of the previous since 2009. Each single week since they opened, they’ve nourished and fed hungry folks of their communities with scrumptious meals. In addition they hope to fight loneliness, offering nice dialog throughout these meals.

They’ve a couple of quite simple and nice goals. Not solely do they want to nourish the hungry, enhancing vitamin and decreasing starvation by cooking meals for these in want, however they assist to help psychological well being and wellbeing on the identical time, creating welcoming areas for folks from all backgrounds and walks of life.

Discover out extra here.

 

Plan Z Heroes

Plan Z Heroes was established in 2011, when the founders determined to place an finish to meals waste. They created a meals donation platform which permits companies and the meals business to rapidly and simply submit their surplus meals donations on-line. Close by charities and group teams can then declare this meals and gather it from their London base.

Their platform presently has over 1,000 companies, charities and volunteers. In addition they work with companies throughout the provision chain – growers, producers, caterers and bakeries. Plus, over 50% of the meals they redistribute is recent and nutritious, equivalent to fruit, greens, meat, fish and dairy.

Discover out extra about Plan Z Heroes’ work here.

 

Meals waste apps

Too Good To Go

One of the well-known apps combating meals waste, Too Good To Go permits eating places, cafes and bakeries to record their leftover meals that might in any other case be thrown out. Customers can browse the map to see what is on the market domestically to them and decide up a bag of products – often known as a ‘magic bag’ – for a really low price.

Karma

Karma is much like Too Good To Go, in that meals is obtainable at a closely discounted value. Customers are capable of rescue recent meals from eating places, cafes and bakeries close to them. Nonetheless, as an alternative of getting a shock bag, customers can see precisely what is on the market at every location. Up to now, Karma has rescued over 4 million meals and saved 1,800 tonnes of CO2. They’ve 1.4 million app customers in 225 cities worldwide.

Olio

One other well-known meals waste app is Olio. Olio permits folks to share undesirable meals and items with neighbours and folks of their native space. Persons are free to share something from undesirable presents to meals that received’t get eaten, and even produce from native supermarkets that’s on the final day of its use by date. Olio additionally companions with catering, hospitality and retail companies to select up surplus meals 24/7 and ship it out into the area people.

FoodCloud

That is one other nice app. FoodCloud connects supermarkets and companies within the meals business with charities and group group to donate their surplus meals. These teams embody household help providers, homeless shelters and extra throughout the UK. An outline of the meals obtainable is uploaded, and charities get a notification that meals is on the market to be collected.

 

Helpful hyperlinks

WE MUST MAKE FREEGANISM LEGAL – HERE’S WHY

OPINION PIECE: WHY AS A SOCIETY WE MUST TRY HARDER TO UNDERSTAND POVERTY

FRUGAL FOOD: HOW TO SAVE ON YOUR FOOD BILL

HOW TO GET FREE FOOD WHEREVER YOU LIVE