Picture by foodcycle.org.uk

Description

FoodCycle is an award-winning charity that runs 15 volunteer-powered community projects across the UK where the volunteers reclaim perfectly edible surplus ingredients from supermarkets and food retailers and turn them into healthy three-course meals for the community to enjoy in a warm and welcoming environment.

FoodCycle's first ever meal was served in May 2009. Since then it has grown to 16 projects nationwide which have served over 50,000 meals, made out of 40,000kg of surplus food by a network of over 1000 volunteers who have given over 32,000 hours of their time - and it wants to do lots more.

The context

4 million people are affected by food poverty in the UK yet everyday huge amounts of perfectly edible food are thrown away. The creators of FoodCycle decided to take action on this and start a movement that empowered local communities to tackle these issues of waste and poverty.

The idea

The idea is simple. Food retailers throw out millions of tons of edible food every year due to supply overstock. The aim of FoodCycle is to redirect this food so it can be used to cook nutritious meals for people in the local community that do not have access to healthy foods for a variety of reasons, such as lack of income or knowledge of healthy nutrition.

The result

Personal health and well-being increase with proper nutrition, food waste is reduced, and young volunteers create positive change in their communities!

Sources and other links