A French Revolution Tackling the global food waste epidemiC

, , , 0

Famous for its gourmet cuisine and tempting delicacies, France has a respected reputation in the world of food. Last month, the country’s food industry stole the spotlight on the global stage once again, when the French government announced an official ban preventing supermarkets from discarding or destroying surplus food.

Thanks to the tireless campaigning of local councillor, Arash Derambarsh, supermarkets are now legally obliged to donate all edible surplus food to charities. Any food that is not fit for human consumption must be used for animal feed, composting or energy production.

In a world of a billion hungry mouths, Derambarsh described it as ’scandalous and absurd’ that perfectly usable food is being deliberately spoiled. While charities remain desperate for donations, many major supermarkets were found to be spraying bleach on produce approaching its best before date, in an attempt to avoid accusations of food-poisoning from foragers consuming leftovers found in bins.

In January this year, Derambarsh launched a petition challenging such behaviour. The petition gained in excess of two hundred thousand signatures, plus significant celebrity support. Just four months later, in a unanimous vote, the French National Assembly outlawed the disposal or spoiling of edible food by supermarkets.

Approved as part of a wider French law, ‘Loi Macron’, supermarkets occupying 400 square metres or more will be forced to sign contracts with charities by no later than July 2016. If they fail to do so, they could face fines of 75,000 Euros and up to two years imprisonment.

It has also been emphasised that supermarkets must not place an unfair burden on charities in receipt of these food donations. Food must be sifted before delivery, and charities must be supported to source appropriate storage facilities.

Loi Macron also plans to introduce an educational programme about food waste in schools and businesses. Former food minister, Guillaume Garot, prepared the bill. He described the new legislation as ‘an important step in the fight against food waste’ and named France ‘the most advanced country in terms of fighting food waste’. The country has publicised its aim to halve their annual food waste figures by 2025.

While France has set a pioneering example in the drive to curb food waste, the fight is gathering impetus on a global scale. In response to recent UN statistics stating that one third of all food produced is lost or discarded, national and international bodies are increasingly working together to address this catastrophe.

Arash Derambarsh certainly wants the new French legislation to be adopted worldwide. Alongside campaign group ONE, established by U2’s Bono, the Parisian councillor is preparing to take the issue of food waste to the United Nations when it addresses its Millennium Development Goals later this year. He also plans to attend the G20 summit in Turkey in November, and the COP21 environmental conference in Paris in December.

Spurred on by French success, the UK have followed suit in launching a petition similar to that of Derambarsh. Started by Lizzie Swarf, the petition implores David Cameron to introduce similar legislation.

‘Rather than wasting millions of pounds worth of food that is still usable, make supermarkets donate their leftover products that are still safe to eat in food banks.’ The petition also proposes the addition of a £2 surcharge to all online orders to fund the delivery service for donations.

Presently, the UK government has a range of voluntary agreements with the grocery and retail sector aimed at cutting food and package waste across the supply chain. However there are no mandatory targets.

The latest figures suggest that 52,000 families were formally declared as homeless last year, with over 900,000 people fed by food banks nationwide. At the same time, avoidable food waste in the UK accounts for over 17 million tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.

Here at This is Rubbish HQ we are currently making the final touches to our campaign that will be calling on the existing voluntary agreement; the Courtauld Commitment and its signatories to publish annual food waste audits, and work to ambitious food waste reduction targets. We also call for prevention to be prioritised over redistribution, as part of longer term change to prevent food waste, and challenge the government to deal with increasing levels of food poverty instead of the supermarkets. 

Watch this space and sign up to our newsletter to keep up to date with our campaign. In the meantime, join the fight against the global food waste epidemic, add your signature to the UK petition here. 

A huge thank you to award winning writer Jo Walker for contributing this post. 

 

Edible Education students win prestigious UN prize

, , , , , , , , 0

Students from Lammas Secondary School in the London Borough of Waltham Forest won third prize in the Think.Eat.Save student challenge to tackle global food waste with their event ‘Eat My Words’. The United Nations and partner organisations, called on students to join the fight to reduce global food waste, estimated at one third annually. Around 470 schools from close to 80 countries took up the call.

The students, who had been selected to take part in the This is Rubbish Edible Education programme, wrote and performed slam poetry and spoken word to spread their message in an event open to parents, teachers and the wider public. This Is Rubbish utilised their contacts with food wholesalers and supermarkets to source surplus food for the event. Six large boxes of produce that would have been wasted was transformed into exotic, healthy snacks and juices. The students from different school years worked collaboratively to exchange ideas, create the invites and line up, make decorations and very importantly, learn new cookery skills using food that would have been wasted. Guests included Aisling Fahey, the Young Poet Laureate for London, who also performed a piece.

Edible Education takes students on a learning journey through the food supply chain and uses cross curricular, interactive learning to empower young people with a positive message for change. The pilot, which has just finished, toured to five schools and through performances, after school clubs and student assemblies reached an audience of 400+ pupils, teachers and parents. The response was fantastic. The broad range of learning activities revealed the values young people hold about food and the environment and the poetry written by the award winning Lammas students referred strongly to themes of social justice and food security. This seems particularly pertinent at a time when the rise and role of UK food banks is being debated. Waltham Forest is home to many families living in poverty and ranks 15th most deprived borough in the country. All the schools TiR Edible Education worked with have the highest proportion of students eligible for free school meals, roughly double the national average.

The TiR Edible Education team has been genuinely inspired by the passionate and thoughtful responses from all the young participants. This is powerful motivation to further these partnerships and we have big ambitions for growing the programme in 2015.

Here’s to a wonderful, wonky 2015!

Edible Education – so what’s it all about?

0

Check out our new film on TiR’s Edible Education Programme.

Filmed and Edited by Matthew Barton

“Growing in soil, step into the sack, wrapped in plastic, factory packed. Chillin on a shelf, lookin scrummy on a plate. Eat it, reheat it, or give it to a mate”.

These have been the latest chants coming out of the mouths of TiR human fruits the past few months. Bert the Old Banana, Lady Land (A.K.A. Compostella), and Jessica the Californian Jazz Apple have been visiting theatres, after school clubs and community arts centres making noise and (literally) a ‘song and dance’ about how to prevent food waste in the UK.

And whilst they have been lamenting this terrible waste, extravagantly via pantomimic moments, they have equally been celebrating the great opportunities and offering real solutions for helping stop food waste.

These public events have been described using the theatre term of ‘scratch’ meaning they were part of a development process and we were keen for audience feedback. It has all been part of creating this interactive, edible foodie show for TiR’s Edible Education programme which seeks to communicate to kids about the realities behind food that is needlessly wasted in the UK, helping them to consider how as individuals and within their communities, they can take action to combat it.

Read on for the full story…

Bert, Jessica and Lady Land are the central characters, supported by Dot, Doris, Doreen and Deirdre – a gaggle of dinner ladies – some a little more outrageous than others! The show opens with Lady Land preparing for the Food Vision Song Contest, which she is desperate to win in order to communicate to the world about food waste and the life-cycle of vegetables, but not a natural musician, she needs some help to win. Bert and Jessica, as long-time song contest winners, step in to help, calling on the talents of the willing audience as choir and orchestra members. Together, Lady Land, Bert, Jess, dinner ladies, and audience come together to write lyrics, drum a beat (thanks to a selection of pots and pans, potato mashers and soup ladles) and create some dance moves of which the sternest of judges couldn’t resist! Once the song is ready for the competition, the audience is then broken up into smaller groups of peppers, carrots and broccoli and are whisked off on a whirlwind tour of the food system. Within these groups, they rotate around three stations learning about compost and its crucial role in continuing the food cycle with Lady Land, wonky veg (where over 20% of fruit is rejected by supermarkets simply due to cosmetic standards) with Jessica, and with Bert they learn about best before v. sell by dates and what to do with fruit that’s getting a little old. For some encouragement, Bert has a delicious selection of banana muffins made from surplus bananas, Jess has succulent apples canapés and Lady Land offers a super fruit juice.

TiR believes in communicating about food waste through feasting celebration in a way that inspires people to take action from feeling a sense of agency and empowerment as individuals and within their own communities. For more information on Edible Education, and if you would like to involve your school, please contact mickeyoreedy@gmail.com

 IMG_20141110_101426 smaller for wordpress

Scratch Feasts this October

0

5929980573_9a3c04160c_z

Interactive, Informative and Incredibly Tasty Feasts
for kids and adults are going to be taking place throughout October and November.

The School Feasts project has grown into a This is Rubbish programme called Edible Education, and as part of the development we are first bringing our educational theatrical feasting to a public audience. We are excited to announce the first FREE ‘Scratch Feast, is going to take place on Sunday 12th October at an Arcola Green Sunday event.

You can book your ticket here.

Scratch Feasts are interactive journeys taking people through the food supply chain! Performers will lead the audience through three courses of games and stories, while feeding the audience on nuggets of knowledge and tasty treats made from food that would otherwise be wasted.

The dining audience will be invited to take inspiration and get creative to join with This is Rubbish in campaigning about the scale of preventable food waste in the UK. Our growing collection of pictures, puppets, poems and pledges demonstrate that people really care about their food and its environmental cost to the planet.

These Scratch Feasts are all part of the process of creating a unique programme for schools, so after minds and bellies have been filled the audience will be kindly asked to take part in a Q & A feedback session.

Scratch Feasts Event Details

The Arcola Theatre in Dalston, London, will be hosting the premier on Sunday 12thOctober, 2 – 4pm, as part of Arcola’s Green Sunday programme. The theatre aims to be the world’s first carbon neutral theatre and since 2009 Green Sunday events have been an informal, creative space to explore sustainability issues. The audience can expect a Sunday dinner with quite a twist.

Click here to book

To celebrate UN World Food Day onThursday 16th October, themed this year as ‘Feeding the world, caring for the earth’, This is Rubbish will be holding a Scratch Feast at Oasis Children’s Venture in Stockwell, London. Children will be supported to prepare food in their after school club which will be served up to them and their parents by a knowledgeable entourage of performing wonky fruit and vegetables.

Rounding off a busy month, This is Rubbish will take the Edible Education tour to Oxford to take part in the Halloween Pumpkin Festival on Friday 31st October: a collaboration between Hubbub, a national organisation working to engage mainstream with sustainability issues, Good Food Oxford and Abundance Oxford. An estimated 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin was sent to landfill sites in the UK last Halloween – that’s the same weight as 1,500 double decker buses. This is Rubbish, supported by local volunteers, musicians and cooks, will be dishing up our pumpkin based food surplus delight, with food provided by TheGleaners Network UK. Last November they saved 11 tonnes of pumpkins from waste from one farm alone!

Funders

This is Rubbish is proud that the Edible Education pilot programme is being supported by National Lottery Awards for All, Tudor Trust and the David Tyler Trust.

For more information about Scratch Feasts and the Edible Education programme please contact Poppy on poppy@thisisrubbish.org.uk

We are always happy to hear from people who would like to get involved with our activities or partner on events.

 

 

School Feast Project is GO!

0

To give a bit more detail, TiR is creating an interactive theatrical feast in which games, riddles and performers take the audience on a treasure trail through the food production system. The feast will be cooked from surplus (‘waste’) food sourced from local supermarkets and food producers, building on relationships already developed by previous TiR events.

We are not only interested in fun, but fundamental food systems change. We think education and the engagement of young people, is vital to enable this. Specifically, the This is Rubbish School Feasts project has been conceived to address two issues;

1) In the UK we are disconnected from food production systems and supply chains, and as a result know little about them. A survey in 2013 by The British Nutrition Foundation highlighted 21% of primary school children and 18% of secondary school children had never visited a farm; and that 18% of primary school children believed fish fingers came from chicken. This demonstrates a clear need for education on food systems

2) Globally 30%-­50% of the food produced today is lost, wasted or discarded somewhere along our food production systems and supply chains before it has chance to reach the dinner table. (IMECHA, 2013). These problems are inter-­related, and a lack of understanding about food production and systems leads to decreased appreciation of its value, beyond ‘cash’ value in the shopping basket. TiR believes there is a clear need for cross­-cutting, values ­led education on food.

The project is starting now, and we are looking for partner schools and events to collaborate with us, and host our pilot Feasts. We are also looking for volunteers, performers and general merry makers. If you are interested, get in touch with Poppy@thisisrubbish.org.uk.

Our most esteemed assistants

Our most esteemed assistants

Waterloo Food Festival tackles food waste by hosting Exotic Excess

1

The This is Rubbish Exotics

Last Saturday a merry band of Exotics held the fort and fed over 500 people tropical fruit surplus salads, complete with edible glitter made from fruit that otherwise would’ve been wasted. A huge thank you to all our volunteers who spoke about food waste for 8 hours, while dressed as tropical exotics! A very special role indeed.

Throughout the day, Exotics offered the public tastes of how delicious industry food waste actually is, we collected over 100 Say no to food waste pledge cards, while informing people about what they can do in the form of an Activist Menu.

This is Rubbish aims to raise awareness about the 50% of food that is wasted before it even reaches people’s homes. We do this by feeding the public with delicious food that was destined for the bin. For this event we worked sourcing our food from Tesco and Morrisons, making sure that the food fed bellies not bins.

We were commissioned by the Waterloo Quater, and were part of their month long Food Festival, that takes place throughout July.  Further details about Waterloo Quarter food festival events in July are available at www.wearewaterloo.co.uk

The event was wrapped up by our Rubbish queen, Exotica, who led the masses into a participatory fruit surplus salad toss. Fruit was chopped and lobbed and tossed, and served up to the public, after they helped prepare their own rubbish desert.

For more  information on how to bring an end to supply chain surplus, check out our Activist Menu.

 

This is Rubbish at Waterloo Food Festival 5th July: Press Release

0

Join This is Rubbish on 5 July as they take on the scandal of surplus food in a tropical café experience in the heart of Waterloo.  Part of this year’s Waterloo Quarter Food Festival the EXOTIC EXCESS CAFÉ promises visitors a totally unique food experience whilst demonstrating the tragedy of global food waste and excess.  Globally we waste between 30-40 per cent of all food grown and produced – and This is Rubbish works towards changing that.

Located on the Lower Marsh Plaza in SE1, open between 11am-4pm, and free to attend, the EXOTIC EXCESS CAFÉ will include a ‘help yourself’ fruit bowl, ‘place mat pledges’ and a ‘menu of activism’.  The place mat pledges – with either community or personal pledges against food waste – will be hung in the café on the This is Rubbish washing line for all to see.  Walkabout performers will be mingling with shoppers along Lower Marsh – serving tropical fruit jelly and chatting about food waste. From 2pm This is Rubbish will perform a ‘communal fruit salad toss for the masses’.  Members of the public are invited to take part and trade in a ‘place mat pledge’ for some free fruit salad and marvel at the glittering Exotic Excess tropical fruit installations aimed at highlighting the tragedy of food waste and excess.

Caitlin Shepherd, This is Rubbish Co Director, said: “This is Rubbish are delighted to be joining the Waterloo Food Festival this year, and on Saturday the 5th of July, will be there in style with an Exotic Excess Cafe.Tropically adorned, a troupe of This is Rubbish volunteers will be serving fruit surplus salad jelly, and demonstrating that the majority of UK industry food waste is too good to chuck out! Come down to sample the delights of surplus, learn about food waste and take part in a large scale fruit salad toss.”

Helen Santer, CEO of Waterloo Quarter, the organisers of the Food Festival, said: “This is Rubbish tells thestory of waste and excess via fun food waste events and experiences.  Food waste is a really important global issue – so we are really excited to be bringing this event to this year’s Food Festival.  I’m anticipating a really unique event and hope Waterloo comes up trumps with lots of pledges against unnecessary food waste.”

This is Rubbish sources its food mainly from supermarkets and large-scale fruit markets in London. As part of their Corporate Social Responsibility schemes, most supermarkets are beginning to choose to give this surplus away rather than simply send it to landfill, which has been common practice thus far. Most surplus supermarket food is still perfectly fine for human consumption but because the rules and regulations behind how food should look (perfect and blemish-free) much of it ends up in landfill for no good reason.

Generally, a whole box of goods can be discarded simply because a barcode is faulty, or one of the containers within a whole shipment is damaged.

To find out more about the EXOTIC EXCESS CAFÉ visit www.wearewaterloo.co.uk

The Waterloo Food Festival runs throughout July with a mouth-watering programme of events and offers showcasing the vibrant mix of food and drink venues to be discovered in the SE1 area.  Waterloo’s many restaurants, pubs, cafés, bars and specialist food shops will be hosting exclusive events, tastings and demonstrations including an Evening Food Fair opposite the Old Vic theatre on 3 July, a Spanish & Latin- American Street Party on 17 July, the Chateau Marmot demo & tasting on 19 July, the Waterloo Beer & Burgers Festival on 24 July and a Waterloo Charity Bake-off on 31 July.

More information about the Festival can be found at www.wearewaterloo.co.uk. To take full advantage of all the special offers, foodie competitions and events pick up a FREE Gastro Passport at participating retailers or by emailing info@waterlooquarter.org

-ENDS-

For further information and images please contact Sarah Harrison, for Waterloo Quarter Food Festival, on

07768 372892 or email sarah@sarahharrisonpr.com

Notes to Editors 

The Waterloo Food Festival 

Now in its sixth year, the Waterloo Quarter Food Festival is a month-long celebration of food and drink organised by the Waterloo Quarter Business Improvement District, Waterloo’s business-led organisation committed to improving the area of Waterloo.  Unlike many other food festivals it doesn’t take place in a tent or marquee but in the street and within individual bars, restaurants, pubs and shops.  Visit

www.waterlooquarter.org to find out more.

A political feast; why skipping is a necessary evil

0

Today’s news told the story of three citizens being taken to court for the act of skipping. That is taking food from commercial bins, that is good to eat but would have otherwise been thrown away.

On the 25th October 2013, a member of the public called the police to report three men climbing over a wall at the back of an Iceland store in London. The three men were subsequently arrested, and faced prosecution for theft. Police arrested the men who were charged under the obscure 1824 ‘vagrancy act’, for stealing. However, later in the day it was reported that the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the charge. Nonetheless, this case raises very important questions about where responsibility for reducing food waste, and for reducing the increasing levels of food poverty in the UK.

More

One two – we’re off to cloud cuckoo!

0

CCL-2013-Festival-Banner

This is Rubbish are off to the second event of the summer, to share stories of creative campaigning to bring a policy led end to current levels of food waste occurring in the industry. We will be drawing on our 2011 Feast tour and the recent IFWAP report, that we launched in Parliament back in May. We will also be staying true to our participatory roots, and hosting a mass This is Rubbish salad toss.

More

Load More