Students get cooking for Love Food Hate Waste Project

A feast of food destined for landfill has been served to 1,000 west Yorkshire students in a bid to highlight the problem of food waste in the UK.

The average British household unnecessarily throws away food worth £480 every year (this increases to £680 for families with children) and most of it is good food - like bread, meat, cheese and vegetables - that is bought but not eaten.

In the run up to National Climate Week, the regional Love Food Hate Waste Project has teamed up with Bradford College, the University of Bradford, Bradford Council's Recycling Team and Markets Service and Jamie's Ministry of Food Bradford, to feed 1,000 students with the same volume of food wasted by a typical UK household every year.

The event was hosted at the university, and Bradford College students prepared, cooked and served the menu designed to show the range of food wasted daily.

Colin Burt, catering tutor at the college, said the initiative also enabled students to learn from it in terms of industrial catering.

The ingredients were donated by Bradford Councils Markets Service, and TV chef Richard Fox (pictured) gave cookery demonstrations throughout the day.

Briony Pete, regional co-ordinator for the Love Food Hate Waste Campaign, said: "It's shocking the amount of food we waste as a nation and it's often difficult to visualise, but try and look at it this way - imagine 10 Wembley stadiums filled to the brim with food, that's how much food is bought but never enjoyed."

"But we're not just focusing on the problem here; simple, positive solutions are the essence of the campaign and we want to show everybody how easy, cost effective and tasty it can be to cook, eat and live the Love Food Hate Waste way."

For more information, visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com.

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By Janie Stamford

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