UK: The Nationwide Caterers Association (NCASS) is calling on the events industry to get involved in 8th Plate, an initiative that salvages festival food waste from events and transforms it into meals for vulnerable members of society.
Every day, one in eight people in the world go hungry. 8th Plate strives to feed that eighth person by working with event organisers to tackle the 400 tonnes of food that ends up in landfill each year in the UK from festivals, described by NCASS as a ‘sad statistic, given that 4.1 million children are currently living in poverty in Britain’.
This season, NCASS is working alongside concession managers, festival and event organisers to collect food items that would usually be thrown away and transport them to charities, homeless shelters and soup kitchens in the local area such as Open Kitchen.
Mark Laurie, NCASS Director, commented: “8th Plate was set up with a simple aim: to prevent perfectly good food from going to landfill. It was so successful in its first year that many NCASS members who had participated in the trial asked when we would run the scheme again. In 2018 alone, we managed to save 12 tonnes of surplus food ending up in the bin – the equivalent of over 28,000 meals and six tonnes of CO2 emissions.
“We’re working with Green Events on many of the shows they support this year, including Parklife, The Courtneeners, Bluedot, Kendal and Y Not, and will be inviting street food traders to get involved in 8th Plate by donating their surplus food to volunteers.
“The task is simple – to minimise waste wherever possible and send it on to the people who need it most. We’d love you to get involved.”
If you’d like to get involved in the 8th Plate project, contact Demi Lockett at NCASS at demi@ncass.or.uk or call 0121 603 2524.
