Feeding the 5000!

Feeding the 5,000   On Saturday 15 June in Piccadilly Gardens, Hope Nelson, trainee at Gaeia, visited the Manchester event ‘Feeding the 5000’. (You can see more on www.feeding5k.org)   Feeding the 5000 is a campaign set up to reduce, reuse and recycle food waste and works 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.   Friends of the Earth helped to run this challenging event, serving 5,000 members of the public a free, hot, nutritious meal at Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester City Centre from 12noon until 4pm. The meal was made entirely of food that would otherwise have gone to waste. It was food that hadn’t gone off or not safe to eat; it was food that was ‘cosmetically imperfect’ – i.e. supermarkets did not want it because it wasn’t the right colour, size or shape.   The stalls in the Gardens also distributed information and simple tips to stop food waste, ran competitions and even gave away free teabags. It was all carried out with the help of volunteers who wanted to come and help out on the day to spread the message, and Friends of the Earth worked with some local groups, including FareShare North West, Cracking Good Food, FoodCycle and the Feeding the 5000 team.     It seems to be a recurring theme this year to cut down food waste, as Zero Waste (http://www.zerowasteweek.co.uk) has a celebratory week later this year.  On its sixth anniversary, Zero Waste Week 2013 runs 2nd - 8th September and encourages the mantra “Use it up!”   Hnblog/270613     Posted by Hope Nelson