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Greenhouse Weekly Roundup

Sally Hill | 29.10.10

The latest video from Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff series examines the cosmetics industry. The Story of Cosmetics has again cleverly reduced some complex ideas into an easily digestible information. I love the way she is able to present very controversial ideas, but has them come across as common sense, and anything but radical.

Here are the links we loved this week:

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george monbiot, solar century, food waste, ebay, forests, jeremy leggett, cosmetics, story of stuff

Join us to Eat and Pledge to Protest Against Food Waste

Greta Jonyniate | 07.11.11

On the 18th of November in Trafalgar Square the Feeding the 5000 team, in partnership with the Mayor of London, Fareshare, FoodCycle, Love Food Hate Waste and Friends of the Earth, will treat 5000 members of the public to a free hot lunch made entirely out of fresh but cosmetically imperfect fruit and vegetables that would otherwise have been wasted.

From 12-2pm, a partnership of campaigners, charities, volunteers and prominent supporters will serve lunch to 5000 members of the public to highlight the problem of food waste, and the many practical ways to solve it. All the food handed out on the day to passers-by will be made from fresh and nutritious provided by farmers and retailer with fruit and veg that otherwise would have been wasted.

The event will engage the public on the issue of food waste in fun and practical ways that demonstrate how governments, businesses and individuals can help. There will be live cooking demonstrations by leading chefs, public interactive apple pressing and the crowds will have the opportunity to hear about why and how to reduce food waste. The menu will include curry made from vegetables cast out because they are not cosmetically perfect, and a range of freshly-prepared and cooked foods cooked ‘live’ by volunteering well known chefs.

Organised by the author and food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000 will highlight the work of the partner organisations FareShare, FoodCycle, Love Food Hate Waste, Friends of the Earth, Mayor of London, journalist and campaigner Rosie Boycott; and celebrity chef Thomasina Miers.

Tristram Stuart explains: “Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including food companies, farmers and charities. The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people.”

“We want to raise awareness of how individuals, as well as retailers, can reduce the amount of food waste they produce. We believe that food retailers and governments should be encouraged to make combating hunger a priority and ensure that resources saved by reducing food waste are put into feeding hungry people around the world.”

SHOCKING FACTS ON WASTE
 More than a third of the world’s entire food production is currently thrown away, contributing to global warming, resource over-use and rising food prices.
 All the world’s nearly one billion hungry people could be lifted out of malnourishment on less than a quarter of the food that is wasted in the US, UK and Europe.
 Rich countries like the UK currently waste up to half of their food supplies.
 An estimated 20-40% of UK fruit and vegetables are rejected even before they reach the shops as they don't match supermarkets’ strict cosmetic standards.
 Bread and other cereal products thrown away in UK households alone would be enough to lift 30 million of the world’s hungry people out of malnourishment.
 And yet ore than 4 million people in the UK suffer from food poverty.




 

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GREENHOUSE WEEKLY NEWS ROUNDUP

Greta Jonyniate | 11.11.11

An escalating conflict between government and the solar sector reached new heights this week when Friends of the Earth threatened to take ministers to court over plans to slash feed-in tariff incentives. 

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wind power, solar power, food waste

Free Lunch for 5000 In Campaign Against Food Waste

Greta Jonyniate | 17.11.11

Five thousand members of the public are invited to a free hot lunch in Trafalgar Square on Friday 18 November between 12 noon and 2.00pm. All food made entirely from ingredients that would otherwise have been wasted, such as fresh but cosmetically imperfect fruit and vegetables.

Feeding the 5000 will highlight how easy it is to reduce the unimaginable levels of food waste in the UK and internationally, and how governments, businesses and individuals can help. The event is run by the Feeding the 5000 team, in partnership with FareShare, FoodCycle, Love Food Hate Waste, Friends of the Earth and supported by the Mayor of London.

In just two hours, charities, volunteers, and the Mayor of London Boris Johnson, will serve a free lunch to 5000 members of the public. The menu will include curry made from ‘mis-shapen’ and wonky vegetables, and a range of cooked dishes prepared live by well known chefs, including Thomasina Miers, Valentine Warner and Arthur Potts Dawson.

The public will be invited to take part in the ‘surplus apple’ pressing and to drink the free juice - with the chance to feed the apple remnants to live pigs in Trafalgar Square, as well as helping to sort through wonky vegetables for delivery to charities. Speakers at the event include the Bishop of London and Rosie Boycott, Chair of London Food.

The event urges the public to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge calling for action from governments, retailers and food businesses: ‘I pledge to reduce my food waste and I want businesses to do the same’. Those unable to attend the event will be able to pledge through the Feeding the 5000 website (www.feeding5k.org). Around 80 percent of consumers want businesses to tackle food waste: this offers an opportunity for businesses to respond to the challenge in proactive, positive ways.

Food businesses, restaurants and retailers are invited to sign the Business Pledge, agreeing to the principles of the ‘Food Waste Pyramid’, a new online guidance tool developed by the Feeding the 5000 partnership to help food businesses avoid waste according to a step by step process.

Feeding the 5000 is organised by Tristram Stuart, author of Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009), whose campaigning on food waste won him this year’s international environmental award, The Sophie Prize (www.sofieprisen.no).

Stuart explains: “Feeding the 5000 is a wonderful partnership including farmers, charities and the public. The aim of our lunchtime feast is to highlight how food waste can be avoided by putting food to good use i.e. feeding people. We want businesses and the public to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge to show how everyone has the power – and the responsibility – to help solve the global food waste scandal.”

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Feeding The 5000 Highlights

Greta Jonyniate | 21.11.11

What a brilliant day! The team here at Greenhouse really enjoyed ourselves throughout the event and would like to congratulate everyone involved on successfully raising awareness of the issue of food waste. Here are some special images of the day as captured by photographer Adrian Brooks.

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Can the People’s Supermarket survive?

Greta Jonyniate | 05.03.12

In 2009, chef Arthur Potts Dawson saw that something was wrong with our high streets. 75% of people in the UK were shopping in stores owned by just four huge corporations.

People were in danger of becoming walking wallets when it came to their food, disenfranchised from the literal bread and butter of their lives.

But Dawson turned what could have been another doom-and-gloom campaign about every town in the country becoming a Tescoville into a positive solution: The People’s Supermarket.

With its bold, minimalist yellow and black branding and its direct name, the supermarket may seem like something from Orwell’s 1984, but it is anything but. The People’s Supermarket is staffed by local volunteers who have a democratic say in how the business is run. Members pay a joining fee of £25, agree to work four hours every month and are eligible for 20% of all their in-store purchases. Because TPS is small compared to Tesco’s, the members can realistically demand change, whether it is deciding which products go on the shelves or who helps manage the volunteers. The shelves feature products from local producers, like beer from the Redchurch Brewery in Bethnal Green and bread from the Flourish Bakery in Tottenham, as well as hosting the mainstream brands like Heinz.

At the back of TSP is the People’s Kitchen, which uses the supermarket's perfectly edible waste produce to prepare fresh cakes, salads and soups daily. The supermarket has been such a success that it has created 23 jobs and has won Local Retailer Award in the Observer Ethical Awards 2011.

So far so good. For anyone with a conscience this is all great – we can tick so many boxes: local, sustainable, ethical, community-driven, social, democratic. But it takes more than ideals and a shiny award to stock a shelf.

Tara Mulqueen, a manger of the membership team, explained to us that life on the front line of ethical shopping is hard. “Originally, we asked members to volunteer and receive a 10% discount on all products. But we needed more members. When we increased the discount to 20%, we doubled the number of members. People really responded to that tangible incentive.”

So people just wanted their food as cheap as possible? Is the ideal of community supermarket tarnished by consumer greed after all? Life is not as black and white as a bar code, Tara insisted. “Nearly all of the people who become members live in the neighbourhood, and they are the most committed to making the store work. I think it’s fair that they want something tangible in return for helping us. That way, they are a member, they are involved - not just a volunteer.”

You would have thought TPS would have no issue attracting people to the store. Channel 4 made a four episode television series about the supermarket’s early days, and the press has widely covered the supermarket’s progress.

But Tara told us that you should never underestimate the potential of word-of-mouth from the people you trust. “When we talk to our members about how they became interested with the scheme, most people tell us that it was through word of mouth. People who feel genuinely engaged by the idea are people who live in the neighbourhood and were told about the store by a friend or family member. We found people who came because they had read about us, or because they saw the show, they thought it was would be cool to sign up, but the reality is that stocking a shelf is not very cool.”

Is the People’s Supermarket a cool idea with a short shelf life, or the next big sustainable business practise? What do you think. It’s up to ‘the people’ to decide. After such a brave move and such progress – surely we want initiatives like this to survive and thrive?

The People’s Supermarket now needs our help – find out why in the next blog post.

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food, food waste, food shopping, shopping, the people's supermarket

How you can save The People’s Supermarket

Greta Jonyniate | 07.03.12

The People’s Supermarket is in trouble. Last month, the TPS had to raise £5,000 to keep the lights on. Thankfully the money was donated by passionate members and a generous Foundation, but the fight to keep a genuinely alternative option to the Big Four supermarkets continues.

The Camden Council continues to hound the supermarket for its business rate debts - all other creditors have compassionately agreed to freeze all debts until the business is in a better financial situation. But what can you - the contentious consumer - do to help foster a more sustainable solution to our shopping needs?

1. Petition: TPS is currently collecting thousands of signatures for its petition to have Camden Council reconsider the business rates that are applied to the supermarket. As a democratic body, the council should listen to what the people want. Visit the supermarket or its website to sign the petition or click here.

2. Shop: The People’s Supermarket is … a supermarket. And supermarkets don’t make money from good wishes or happy thoughts. It needs cold hard cash in the bank. The simplest way to do this is to visit the store the next time you find yourself in the centre of London. More importantly, try to make it part of your regular shopping experience.

Daniel Mulcahy, a store member, told us that the big issue is getting shoppers to return. “We get people coming in to try something different, but we need shoppers to treat the store as the place they get their weekly shop.”

Greenhouse PR can heartily recommend the People’s Kitchen broccoli quiche.

3. Volunteer: It’s not just shelf stackers and checkout staff the supermarket needs. “The most pressing issue at the moment is our legal status,” Daniel told us. “We need to rethink our legal status. We are currently a social enterprise, which falls under being an Industrial Providence Society. This is causing problems in terms of the business rates we pay, because whilst we are for profit and not a charity, our profit goes back into the store and it’s members.”

So if you are a hot shot business lawyer who specialises in Industrial Providence Society legal issues, this could be your moment to shine. And even if you are not so well qualified, becoming a member provides more money, more manpower and more outreach for the supermarket.

4. Attend an event: The supermarket runs events every week, with special weekend events. So far the supermarket has hosted a somewhat chaotic pet get-together, a tipsy beer festival, and a children’s day with face painting and home made toys.

Upcoming events include Fairtrade Pop-Up restaurant on running from the 9th March to the 15th March and a plant sale on weekend of the 25th March.

5. Get Political: “We were somewhat naive.” Daniel admitted to us. When David Cameron visited the store, it was assumed to be a good PR move. “But we didn’t want to be caught up with the whole Big Society message. We didn’t want to be used as a political football.”

Write to Labour run Camden Council to ask them to make a compassionate decision based on whether the supermarket’s ethos is valuable to society, Big or small.

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food, food waste, shopping, petition, the people's supermarket

“Eat Food, Not Too Much, Mostly Plants” Radio 4 The Food Programme

Greta Jonyniate | 13.03.12

BBC Radio 4's Food Programme was brilliant this week - and is well worth clicking here to listen again. The programme features interviews with food writer and activist Michael Pollan, from the US, and Joanna Blythman, a UK food journalist.

According to Pollan, we are in the middle of a “big and very new experiment” by eating through industrialised methods. Is the experiment working? With type II diabetes costing New York $400,000 per patient, the US is just beginning to review how and what they are eating. The healthcare costs of the current system is set to be unsustainable, and Pollan believes that traditional, local eating habits could be the remedy.

Pollan is well known for his rule, “Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.” This rule comes from his last book, Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, which contains rules to help us become better and more ethical eaters. Pollan’s rules are an attempt to fight against our thinking about food, which is trapped in a dichotomy of food as either “poison or medicine.”


 

Blythman has similar concerns about our eating habits. Her book What to Eat: Food that’s good for your health, pocket and plate contains 20 “principles of eating,” including “base your diet on real, unprocessed food,” “don’t buy food with ingredients you won’t find in a domestic larder,” and “boycott factory farmed meat, poultry, eggs and dairy.”

It was a fascinating programme - I began to realise that we may be at a turning point - when the economics of obesity and health problems associated with healthcare costs in the US in turn makes the politicians and regulators sit up and listen and consider the outcomes of our current industrialised food system.   A very sorry state of affairs though - that it takes an economic and healthcare crisis to prompt politicians, regulators, and food manufacturers to think responsibly about sustainable food systems - and take the necessary action to change.

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food, food waste, joanna blythman, fast food, radio4, michael pollan, eating, the food programme