First food waste supermarket opens in the UK
A food waste supermarket - the first in the UK - has opened near Leeds and it allows people to "pay as they feel" for the goods by giving time, money or skills.
The "warehouse", a store on the Grangefield Industrial Estate in Pudsey, is the latest invention of The Real Junk Food Project, which is behind food banks and 120 waste food cafes across the world.
The project receives on average between two and 10 tonnes of food at its warehouse every day - just a tiny fraction of the staggering 10 million tonnes of food and drink waste the UK generates every year.
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"Usually we donate it [leftover food] to local schools but over the summer we ended up with all this surplus and we wondered how we would get rid of it," Chef Adam Smith, who founded the project, told the BBC.
"We moved it to one part of the warehouse, put a notice up on social media asking people to come and get it, and it just went mad."
"We ask that you pay what you feel in time, money and skills. We do have people coming with the intention of paying and if it carries on like it does, it will pay for the cost of the warehouse.
The warehouse's food is surplus from the "Fuel for School" campaign which sees the charity partnering with Richmond Hill primary school in order to end child hunger in school.
Smith said he hoped to open similar "supermarkets" in other parts of the UK.
"Pay-as-you-feel" cafes receive food from various sources, including allotments, food banks, restaurants, food photographers, events and functions. The food must respect environmental health regulations - including safe transportation, storage, cooking and re-heating- in order to be taken and served.
"We intercept food that is past its expiration date and use our own judgement on whether we believe the food is fit for human consumption or not, by smelling it, tasting it and visually inspecting it," the project says on its website. "We do not turn food away simply because it has ‘expired’, but we will never serve food that we believe is unfit for human consumption."
