Access All AreasEvent industry organisers and associations have united to promote greater green awareness in sourcing food for events.
Fareshare South West, A Greener Festival and the Nationwide Catering Association (NCASS) have joined forces under the name 8th Plate to offer a service based on a scheme trialled at Roskilde Festival last year.
The Danish festival salvaged and donated 27.5 tonnes of food with the support of Stop Wasting Food Denmark, who cooked up bread and Danish pastries into nutritious meals.
This summer, 8th Plate will work with six UK festivals to donate food to those in need.
The initiative is partly based on successful trials at Shambala and Camp Bestival in 2014, where Fareshare South West collected edible food waste from traders, which was distributed locally, and the Surplus Supper club dining experience offered luxury sit-down meals made from majority food waste from supermarkets.
8th Plate, supported by Esmee Fairban Foundation and WRAP, will gather data and produce a video and toolkit.
Mark Laurie of NCASS said: “Food waste at events is unfortunately inevitable, but through this project we hope to both reduce the waste generated and use unavoidable waste to help some of the most vulnerable people in society.”
A festival survey, conducted by Kambe Events with the Association of Festival Organisers (AFO) and the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), found that only 14% of festivals surveyed had a green traders award. Glastonbury has been leading the way for many years with minimum standards for suppliers and a Green Trader Award.
In other news, Food Connections, now in its third year, provided and supplied to 130 food-based events across Bristol in early May.