Press Release:

THERE IS SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH!

FareShare South West and Feeding the 5000

 highlight food waste and food poverty

   12^th May 2012, 1.00pm – 5.00pm, College Green, Bristol

Like anything that’s become a “West End” hit the next stop after London is the West Country and Feeding the 5000 is no exception. FareShare South West is hosting this hugely successful event to bring wider attention to the issues of food waste and food poverty on 12^th May 2012, on College Green, Bristol.

FareShare South West (FSSW), a charity working with the food industry, distribute good quality food, that would have been wasted, to over 60 projects involved with vulnerable people across the region. On 12^th May FSSW and their partners will be preparing and cooking a free hot lunch for members of the public using ingredients that would have been wasted, such as imperfect fruit and vegetables.

Feeding the 5000 Bristol will highlight how simple it is to reduce the unacceptable levels of food waste[i] in the UK and how government at local and national level, businesses and individuals can help. The event is being organised and hosted by FareShare South West[ii], in partnership with Feeding the 5000 and with the collaboration of The Soil Association[iii], Love Food Festival, Thali Café, Bristol City Council, Kambe Events[iv], Food Cycle[v] and Coexist[vi]. The event will be formally opened by Barbara Janke, Leader of Bristol City Council.

From 1pm to 5pm the charities, volunteers and chefs will serve a delicious free meal to members of the public. The menu will feature a hearty main course of Curry stew served with bread and freshly pressed fruit juice. The ‘demo’ kitchen will feature The Fabulous Baker Brothers, Tristan Hogg from Pieminister, Tom Hunt from Poco Lounge and Barny Haughton from The Square Food Foundation. There will be music and children’s activities to help everyone work off their food. There will also be a ‘wonky veg’ stall where members of the public can pick up a bag of fruit and vegetables to take home.

Our guest chefs will demonstrate to the public in “Ready, Steady, Cook” style, simple to prepare, hearty, nutritious meals from food that FareShare receives on a regular basis.  This will enable the public to understand that no good food needs to be wasted either from commercial operations or your own home.

Feeding the 5000 Bristol is campaigning to bring to the attention of the general public the unacceptably large volumes of food being wasted every day across not just the UK, but the globe.

Jacqui Reeves (Project Director, FareShare South West) revealed her motivations:  “Feeding the 5000 is such a wonderful organization, having them involved together with high profile people like Tom and Henry Herbert will really help us spread the message that food waste has become socially and morally unacceptable.   This event has West Country mentality written all over it – our region has never been a push over for anything, we always stand by what we believe in and Feeding the 5000 will have us demanding change and voting with our forks!”

Tristram Stuart (Feeding the 5000 founder) explains:  “Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including farmers, charities and the public.  The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people.  We want businesses and the public to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge to show how everyone has the power and the responsibility to help solve the global food waste scandal.”

Tom Hunt (Poco Lounge and eco chef) said: “This event is vital to show the sheer scale of the crazy rules that are enforced on companies which impact on food poverty in this so called educated country.”

At the event members of the public will be asked to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge calling for action from government, retailers and food businesses: ‘I pledge to reduce my food waste and I want businesses to do the same’. Those unable to attend the event will be able to pledge through the Feeding the 5000 website (www.feeding5k.org ).

Food businesses, restaurants and retailers are invited to sign the ‘Business Pledge’, agreeing to the principles of the ‘Food Waste Pyramid’, a new online guidance tool developed by the Feeding the 5000 partnership to help food businesses avoid waste by following a simple step by step process.

Event Highlights:

• 1pm-5pm – free feast and fruit pressing throughout the afternoon, along with:
  • Signing the pledge
  • ‘Wonky veg’ stall

• Professional Chefs – showing off their skills in the ‘demo’ kitchen, and including:
  • Tom and Henry Herbert – the Fabulous Baker Brothers
  • Tom Hunt – Poco Lounge
  • Barny Haughton – Square Food Foundation
  • Thali Café Chef

• Speakers include:
  • Barbara Janke (Leader of Bristol City Council), who will formally open the event
  • Tristam Stuart (founder of Feeding the 5000 and author of Waste and award winning campaigner)
  • Professor Kevin Morgan (director of the Cardiff Regeneration Institute, and leading researcher in the field of Food Ethics)

• Live Music from:
  • Troubadour Hook
  • Lady Accapella
  • Gasmen

• Children’s activity yurt, including:
  • Butter making
  • Seed egg shells
  • Thought wall

Feeding the 5000 Bristol will also promote the activities of the partner organisations who will host activities during the afternoon including Coexist community kitchen, who will be whipping up some tasty cream teas to attract anyone with a sweet tooth… all the more yummy because it is going in your bellies and not in the bin!

Key Facts about the event: 

• 1 tonne of vegetables and 750kg of fruit have been donated to this event to raise awareness of the issues around food waste. Anything not used in the event will be distributed to FareShare’s local Community Members
• 40 volunteers will wash, peel, chop, cook and serve the delicious curry
• Around 500kg of fruit will be on College Green, ready for juicing along with the ‘wonky veg’ stall where the public can take home fruit and veg.

For more information:

• We can provide interviews with:
  • Tristram Stuart, founder of the Feeding the 5000, award-winning campaigner and author of Waste;
  • Andrew Street, Chair of FSSW;
  • Jacqui Reeves, FSSW Project Director and event director; and

• Event partners, including FareShare UK

• We can provide interviews or press visits to the FareShare South West depot in Easton.

• We can provide food waste facts, and photographs from previous Landfill Café and Feeding the 5000 events.

For further information please contact:

Andrew Street Chair of FareShare South West - astreet@slrconsulting.com

Jacqui Reeves, Project Director – jacqui@faresharesouthwest.org.uk

Molly Conisbee – mconisbee@soilassociation.org

Amanda Archer-Brown – aprilblue822@hotmail.com

Background info to F5K:

• The FareShare South West F5K event follows on from the success of the 2011, Trafalgar Square event, which illustrated the public’s appetite for engaging on the issue of food waste.
• When Tristram Stuart, food waste campaigner and author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009 [ www.tristramstuart.co.uk]) began organising the event, it became a real catalyst for action – he was faced with a flood of farmers, packers and markets who wanted to donate food – either surplus, cancelled orders, or stock that did not meet supermarkets’ cosmetic standards and so would otherwise have been wasted.
• Around 5,000 curries were served; a quarter of a tonne of smoothies and 3 tonnes of fresh groceries were given away – all from food that would have otherwise gone to waste. It was all provided free, and it gave London a glimpse of the vast reserves of good food hidden in the nation’s bins.

• The event profiled the work of partner charities working in the food waste sector and helped garner political support with the then DEFRA Minister, Hillary Benn MP, writing to CEO’s of all UK supermarkets urging them to donate surplus food to FareShare or similar charities.
• Most of the major retailers have since improved their record in terms of food donations and other food waste reduction measures, but it is clear that much more can be done.
• The 2011 Trafalgar Square event offered a more targeted set of solutions to consumers as well as a business strategy aimed at helping food businesses find better ways of avoiding waste through the Food Waste Pyramid (FWP) scheme.

• The FWP scheme is a simple step-by-step process that prioritises ‘waste avoidance’ measures.

Our food donors:

Who are giving us food for the F5K? TBC

Community Projects:

Food that is not cooked or used for the event will go to FareShare South West’s Community Members including: The Wild Goose café, Fairbridge West, the Salvation Army and the Bristol Drug Project.

4,187 FED, WITH LOAVES AND CURRY DISHES.

The weather was amazing, the wonky vegetable curry left us begging for more, but our souls were soothed by the sweet sounds of some amazing musicians and Bristol – you did us proud.  Thank you, thank you 5000 times!

Last Saturday, FareShare South West put Feeding the 5000 squarely on the Bristol map and firmly in the social calendar for the future.  The enormously successful event brought wider attention to the issues of food waste and food poverty.

Barbara Janke, Leader of Bristol City Council, officially opened the event followed by Tristram Stuart, founder of the Feeding the 5000 charity and author of ‘Waste’, who delivered a passionate and direct speech regarding the very serious message underlying the event and highlighting how simple it is to reduce the unacceptable levels of food waste in the UK and how government at local and national level, businesses and individuals can help.

When the food arrived hot from the vast cooking pots, College Green quickly became a hive of excitement as actress Bonnie Wright made a guest appearance to dish up up a little magic as she got stuck in with the serving of the first curries.

Later on Bristol’s own Thali Chefs cooked up a storm in the demo kitchen, followed by celebrity guest chefs, Tom Hunt, Barney Haughton and fabulous baker brother Tom Herbert who subsequently arrived to impress and inspire us with their culinary genius.

At a launch event in parliament yesterday, Kerry McCarthy, MP for Bristol East, presented the case for her new Food Waste Bill.

This was the first step in her campaign to put into law the principle that whilst there are hungry people in the UK, it is ethically corrupt that edible food be thrown into landfill. It will receive its first parliamentary hearing tomorrow (14^th March), right after Prime Ministers question time.

If the Bill is successful it will ensure that more food is donated to charities like FareShare for redistribution to people who really need it. More information on the Bill can be found here.

The event was attended by key stakeholders; Peers and MP’s, environmental organisations and representatives from food redistribution charities, including FareShare’s Lindsay Boswell (CEO) and Matthew Roberts (Education Programme Coordinator, FareShare South West).

Tristram Stuart spoke in support, saying that the Bill was a “no brainer”, offering a direct and much needed relief to pressing environmental and social problems. Tristram is author of the Sophie Prize winning book ‘Waste: Uncovering the global food scandal’.

Jim Larson, Programme Development Director of Food Donation Connection, followed with his view from the United States, where a similar law is already in place. This law, The Good Samaritan Act, contributes to the fact that the percentage of edible surplus food being donated to charities for redistribution in the US is ten fold greater than in the UK.

The evidence seems overwhelming that this Bill would be a boon to the 4 million people suffering food poverty the UK and would incentivize food producers and retailers to reassess their approach to food waste.

If you would like to voice support for Kerry, please write to your MP and encourage them to support her. Advice on how to do this can be found here.

Up to date information on the campaign can be found on the Food Bill Facebook page.

We are very excited to announce the arrival of Matt Roberts who has come on board to develop our student project, FareFuture.  Matt, who recently resigned from his job, devised the project to deliver some much needed support in terms of lobbying, fund raising and publicity from the South West’s young people.  Matt then took his idea forward and entered the VODAFONE World of difference, and won funding for his innovation.

Matt, who has a keen eye for an idea and seemingly boundless energy to bring them to fruition kicks off next week with a presentation to Bradley Stoke Community College.  We are looking forward to some exciting events coming this way.

If you are a student or tutor and would like your school, college or university to get involved please contact Matt at info@faresharesouthwest.org.uk or see the web page.

On 26th November, Sainsbury’s customers helped feed those in need. We’re delighted to reveal that the Million Meal Appeal has been a success.

The generosity of Sainsbury’s customers has been overwhelming and with Sainsbury’s matching their customers, FareShare can provide a staggering 1.2 million meals for vulnerable people.  This equated to 39 pallets of food in the South West alone.

A small item of food makes a huge difference 

600 Sainsbury’s stores took part in the appeal, and customers helped by donating store cupboard staples, such as tins, packets and dried foods that complement the fresh food that FareShare receives from the food industry, making our resources go that bit further.

The response from everyone was phenomenal; from Sainsbury’s customers who contributed with food, to the wonderful FareShare volunteers and Sainsbury’s staff who gave their own time to support the initiative. Many thanks also to Allied Bakeries who helped with logistics and volunteering.

What happens with the food now…
 
5.8 million people live in deep poverty in the UK, meaning that they find it difficult to buy basic things that many of us take for granted, including food.  FareShare works with a wide range of amazing organisations – 700 of them in fact – such as hostels, breakfast clubs and women’s refuges. They all provide a real lifeline for people in need and together we feed 35,000 people a day.

All the food collected will now be redistributed to all our charity partners across the UK, from Aberdeen to Brighton, from Bristol to Sunderland.

A million thanks to everyone who supported the “1 Million Meal Appeal”!

Years ago, when I was at School I had a home economics homework to feed a family of four, for a week on £20.  Although giving away my age – I am proud to say, that whilst I didn’t have a clue my Mother was able to do it, not only that, but she was the only parent who did manage it and I shared my homework with lots of friends.  A bizarre homework given that we were never taught to roast lamb bones and make stock, structure a balanced menu or calculate the cost of things we made.

There is definitely an art to shopping and cooking on a budget, and in these days of ready meals and fast food it is becoming a dying craft.  If Home Economics or Food Technology is no-longer a compulsory element of the school curriculum – how will the next generation learn?

Like many I often wonder how my ‘$5 dollar shake princess’ would survive in the ‘real’ world:  I’ve been that parent in the supermarket saying, “Do you think money grows on trees?”

After recently becoming a volunteer at FareShare South West, and one final flip comment of “Oh, lets just go to Wagamma’s for lunch. . . .” I challenged my 13-year-old daughter to feed our family of four, a three-course dinner for £5.00.  Undaunted – and thinking this would be very easy, she accepted.

I allowed her a fully stocked kitchen cupboard (salt, pepper, oil, spices etc), and did not charge her for electricity etc, but everything else had to come out of the £5.00.

She decided upon the following menu:

Melon with Parma Ham

Pasta al tonno

Ice-cream

Basket and £5 note in hand, and armed with her mobile phone for quick calculations she braved Morrison’s in Newquay on a Saturday morning on her own.  (I chose Morrison’s because Sainsbury’s have recently produced a brochure to enable you to feed a family of 4 on £50 a week – didn’t want to make it that easy!).

The entire process took her around an hour, this is what she bought:

She thoroughly enjoyed the challenge, and her menu revised somewhat from what she assumed she could buy and what she could indeed buy for £5.00.  The most nerve wracking moment came when the onion was weighed at the checkout – as they were not individually priced, however she did learn that there is usually a set of scales in the fruit and veg section so that you can calculate reasonably safely how much your produce will cost.

However, the comment of the day has to have been “OMG I can’t believe ice-cream is SO expensive”.

She knew that Parma Ham was not cheap, but was hoping that Morrison’s might have a ‘value’ version . . . . . . they do not!

There were a couple of things she was not prepared to compromise on – organic whole wheat pasta, and dolphin friendly tuna so in order to stay true to her values she had to compromise in another area.

I did not help her at all – you’ll have to take my word for that, but she can cook and she does know how to put a meal together, so she had that in her favour.

Her final menu was:

Melon

Pasta al tonno (aka tuna pasta)

Jam Doughnuts with side accompaniment of Natural Sweet Company Jellies. (She is only 13!)

She shopped, cooked and cleared up, the dinner was tasty and filling – if a little heavy on the carb front and she came away with a greater appreciation for what food costs and how hard it can be to eat what you want on a budget.  She’s a great fan of FareShare and the work we do, and for her next challenge wants to do Christmas dinner for £10! Watch this space.

Last week saw the inception of Hub and Spoke, the brain-child of the Director of FareShare South West, at the St Jude’s Depot. Representatives of interested community projects joined us along with some FareShare South West old hands in the guise of our amazing volunteers, Alan of Wild Goose fame and our newest board of trustees’ member Katie Harwood.

The very best ideas are those with simplicity at the foundation:  Simply put FSSW (as the Hub) will be supporting several new charities across the West (the spokes) whilst they get their feet on the ground during their initial year.  The first of these, introduced at the launch by Jacqui Reeves is Transition Bath.

Rebecca & Malcolm, certainly know their onions!

Under the steady leadership of Rebecca Sarll, Transition Bath opened its doors last November with its mission to make the community in and around Bath more sustainable.  Rebecca explained how her first year had been a whirlwind of meeting and visiting with projects in Bath who may have an interest in receiving regular food trays from FSSW.

FareShare South West are also looking forward to the addition of a second spoke FareShare of Gloucester which will be headed up by Malcolm Nunn and goes live this November – watch this space – literally as our website is about to expand!

A massive round of applause rang out yesterday at the FSSW depot in Bristol, as Trevor, Nassur, Nick and Paul were awarded their Fork Lift Truck drivers licence by FSSW Director Jacqui Reeves.

The fantastic four have been working hard over the last month under the steady hand (and beady eye) of Pete Wright, our Operations Manager and are living, breathing proof of the success of our volunteer education and training ethos.

Jacqui explained:  I am truly delighted at their achievement, it’s really great to watch people succeed – also this will mean more people moving more food – always great news.

Over the last 3 years, 22 of our FareShare South West volunteers (many of whom are or have been in a vulnerable position) have achieved various NVQ’s and accreditation in warehouse operations, we are very keen to maintain and build on this success rate.

At Shambala it’s usually the acts and bands playing to sell out audiences – but we’re thrilled to say that FareShare Southwest also sold out on Saturday night for our Landfill feast.

With the team fully frocked up as Cowboys and Indians – our diners were treated to such heavenly delights as Andalusian Chicken and Chorizo stew with Saffron Rice and a Vegetable and Chickpea curry.   Then on Sunday night the team pulled out all the stops again with a hearty serving of bangers and parmesan mash for over 100 people.  All prepared with food saved from landfill.

It was no mean feat – maintaining the café with treats and nibbles from Thursday through to Sunday and our bicycle charging around offering a lucky ‘skip’ with chocolates.  Our volunteers really did us proud, we raised £1500 for FareShare SW and signed-up many new ‘Friends’.   It makes the scene of our bedraggled Cowboys and Indians cooking and washing up in the mud, under umbrellas on Sunday night worth every raindrop!

We would like to say to everyone THANKYOU for helping us make it such a success and a very warm WELCOME to our new friends!

We’ll be back!