Yorkshire café serves dishes entirely from local food waste
A café whose food is created using entirely "waste" produce from restaurants and supermarkets has opened in Leeds, West Yorkshire.
Donations used so far include caviar, salmon, truffles, cheeses, spices, mixed vegetables and cuts of meat.
Since the café opened, six co-directors have come on board, plus a group of around 50 volunteers, who help run the site and cook the meals. It serves up to 30 covers a day for breakfast and lunch so far, and operates a food bank from the venue. The group is also looking to expand and cater for outside events in future.
Customers can also pay what they choose for the meal they have, according to how much they feel able to give.
Smith has said he believes the café has so far saved over a tonne of food that would otherwise have gone to landfill.
Co-director Connor Walsh told the Daily Mail: "We want to make use of all this food that is being needlessly wasted over society. We want to provide healthy meals for people who are food insecure. Using food collected that basically gets sent to landfill."
The issue of food waste has risen up the agenda in recent months and weeks. Wahaca founder Thomasina Miers has co-run a campaign calling for a re-introduction of using waste in pig feed, while various figures have suggested anaerobic digestion as the best policy.
Just yesterday, a House of Lords European Union Committee released a report on EU-wide food waste. It found that 90 million tonnes were wasted in the UK alone - estimated as the equivalent of £5b a year.
The committee's chair, Baroness Scott, condemned the current food waste policies as "fragmented" and "morally repugnant", with the report recommending that the new European Commission enact a five-year food waste strategy within its first six months.
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