Anti food waste campaigning body This is Rubbish’s (TiR) has announced that its latest project, Edible Education, which will include interactive theatrical performances about the food supply chain.
Supported by the National Lottery Awards for All, the Tudor Trust and The David Tyler Trust, the performances, called Scratch Feasts, will involve audiences being led through three courses of games and stories, while eating food that would otherwise be wasted.
TiR will source its food mainly from supermarkets and large-scale fruit markets in London (such as that pictured). It is hoped the project will highlight the amount of food that is lost through the supply chain due to rule and regulations about the aesthetics of food. (A French supermarket also recently highlighted the problem, by selling ‘ugly’ fruit and vegetables to the public, to demonstrate that they still have the same value and taste as their more aesthetically-pleasing counterparts.)
‘Lack of understanding about food production’
TiR has launched the project to provide more information on food systems, after a survey by The British Nutrition Foundation found that 21 per cent of primary school children and 18 per cent of secondary school children have never visited a farm, and that 18 per cent of primary school children believe fish fingers came from chicken. According to TiR this ‘lack of understanding about food production and systems leads to decreased appreciation of its value’.
As such, it is hoping that through participatory learning, the Scratch Feast project will address peoples’ ‘disconnect’ with food systems, and inspire actions to reduce food waste.
Feedback from questions asked at the Scratch Feast performances will also provide the base of a TiR education programme for schools.
The first Scratch Feast event will be held at the Arcola Theatre in Dalston, London on Sunday (12 October).
Another performance will take place at Oasis Children’s Venture in Stockwell, London on UN World Food Day (16 October), with the third being held in Oxford at the Halloween Pumpkin Festival, 31 October.
Tickets for the Scratch Feast performances can be bought online.
Read more about food retailers educating employees about food waste.
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