What’s
happening?
Five thousand members of the public will be served a
free, hot, nutritious lunch in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens on Saturday 15th
June between 12noon and 4pm. The meal will be made entirely from ingredients
that would otherwise have been wasted, such as fresh but cosmetically imperfect
vegetables and fruits.
Over the course of an afternoon, volunteers will serve a
free lunch to 5000 people and share information about simple solutions to food
waste. The menu will include a delicious curry made from fresh, nutritious, and
“wonky” produce that would otherwise have been wasted. The public will be
invited to participate in cooking sessions as well as meeting a range of
organisations tackling food waste in and around
Manchester.
Why is it happening?
Feeding the 5,000 is an international campaign that
seeks to highlight how easy it is to reduce the unimaginable levels of food
waste in the UK and around the world, and how governments, businesses and
individuals can help. A number of partner organisations, charities and community
organisations will be present at the event to share information about how to
reduce food waste, and to offer fun food related activities for adults and kids.
The event has been organised by Manchester Friends of the Earth, FareShare North
West, Cracking Good Food and the Feeding the 5000 team.
What are we asking
for?
So, is there ever such a thing as a free lunch? In
return for a lovely meal, the event will urge the public to take in some
information about food waste issues, reduce their food waste, and demand that
businesses do the same. There will be a focus on practical solutions to food
waste at home, and we’ll be asking people to learn about, and take steps to,
reduce food waste at home, including planning ahead, and learning how to cook
with leftovers.
We’ll also be asking the public to sign up to the
international Feeding the 5000 pledge, which calls for action from governments,
retailers and food businesses. Members of the public can pledge at any time on
the Feeding the 5000 website (www.feeding5k.org).
The event will offer the chance to find out what is
happening in Manchester and the North West around food waste, with a variety of
organisations presenting information, ideas, and activities for kids on the day.
Sebastien Serayet, Development Manager at Fareshare
North West said: “At FareShare North West, we believe good food should not be
wasted especially when so many local people are struggling to afford to feed
themselves. We work all year long to capture edible food and give it away to
charitable organisations who feed those in need. Feeding the 5,000 is a great
event to highlight these issues to the general public and show how local
communities are tackling these problems. “
Corin Bell, Lead Food Waste Campaigner at Manchester
Friends of the Earth said, "We're really excited to be putting on a Feeding the
5000 event in Manchester. It's a campaign we've followed for years and an issue
that our group feels really strongly about. In our current economic climate,
with so many people struggling to afford basics like food, it seems ridiculous
that perfectly nutritious food is wasted because it's not aesthetically perfect,
or because it's the "wrong" size".
Key Facts About the Event;
More than one tonne of food will be used to make a meal
for 5000 people, and all of this food (and a good deal more besides) would have
gone to waste. As well as highlighting this issue, the event seeks to build new
relationships between food businesses and charities like FareShare, who
distribute food to charities working with vulnerable people who might otherwise
go hungry.
Over 100 volunteers will work together to deliver this
event, washing, peeling, and chopping the fresh ingredients will take 40
volunteers over 3 hours!
Profile of
Partner Organisations;
Feeding the 5000 - founded by Tristram
Stuart, author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin 2009),
whose campaigning on food waste won him the 2011 international environmental
award, the Sophie Prize. The events have been used to launch Feeding the 5000
food waste campaigns in the UK, Ireland, France and in partnership with the UN
and the EC, are now being replicated across the globe from New York to
Sydney.
FareShare North West - part of a
national network of operational partners who distribute in-date food to
organisations who in turn support people in food poverty, such as homeless
shelters, day centres, breakfast clubs and sheltered housing units. http://www.emergemanchester.co.uk/fareshare-north-west.html
Manchester Friends of the Earth - An award-winning
environmental campaign group, taking action on a range of local, national and
international issues including climate change, corporate responsibility, food,
trade justice, sustainable transport & aviation and waste &
recycling.http://manchesterfoe.org.uk/
Cracking Good Food - a
Manchester-based social enterprise which promotes cooking from scratch
sustainably and seasonally through value-for-money classes for the general
public, free hands-on sessions and courses with community groups, pop-up
sessions at festivals, bespoke events and wild-food foraging workshops.
http://www.crackinggoodfood.org/
Cracking Good Food will be running a series of free
hands-on cooking sessions alongside the main event, working with three groups at
a time, from 12 noon – 4pm, using some of the same ingredients from the main
meal that would otherwise have gone to waste, teaching people how to cook up a
storm with short-dated or limp veg.... and you get to eat what you
cook!
Key Facts About Food
Waste;
·
UK Households waste around
20% of all the food we buy – but the good news is that this suggests a 17%
reduction since 2007. We're improving!
·
All the world's nearly one
billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a
quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and
Europe.
·
An estimated 20 to 40% of
UK fruit and vegetables rejected even before they reach the shops – mostly
because they do not match the supermarkets' excessively strict cosmetic
standards.
·
The bread and other cereal
products thrown away in UK households alone would have been enough to lift 30
million of the world's hungry people out of
malnourishment
·
An estimated 15 million
tonnes of food wasted in Britain from the plough to the
plate.
·
10% of rich countries' greenhouse gas emissions come
from growing food that is never eaten.
To volunteer on the day please contact:
http://www.manchesterfoe.org.uk/manchester-feeding-the-5000/ (this is vital for insurance
purposes)
Or if you’d
like to assist Cracking Good Food with cooking up food with the public, please
contact Tracey@crackinggoodfood.org
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