A smattering of Adelaide’s leading chefs will join food rescue charity OzHarvest to feed 2,000 members of the public for free. Sounds amazing right?!
But the ingredients won’t be straight form the farm, at least not recently. These meals will be made from ‘rescued’ food. The sort of stuff which is still good to eat but is thrown out every day across Adelaide’s cafes, restaurants, markets and supermarkets. Around 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted worldwide each year, which is approximately one third of all food fit for human consumption. That’s a lot. That’s also disgusting.
Which is why local identities including Tze Khaw (National Wine Centre), Gavin Robertson (Adelaide Convention Centre), Philip Pope (Adelaide Oval), Tony Hart (InterContinental), Kevin Martel (The Playford) and Amanda Gutte (Stamford) will be serving up a delicious feast with the support of SA cooks Maggie Beer, Saskia Beer, Rosa Matto, Silvia Hart, Jessie Spiby at the University of Adelaide Goodman Lawns on July 25th.
A live panel discussion will also take place with industry experts including local stars Simon Bryant, Kate Sumner of Kangaroo Island Source, Tze Khaw of the National Wine Centre and more guests on food waste, food security and sustainability. In the spirit of sustainability, 450 delicious fruit smoothies will also be made by the public and
OzHarvest volunteers on ‘smoothie bikes’.
The campaign this is all tied into is called Think.Eat.Save, a national initiative of OzHarvest who are trying their best to make a dent into the $8 billion each year Australians spend on food that doesn’t get eaten.
This all has an international scope with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) a key partner with OzHarvest in the initiative. A day like this and efforts such as OzHarvest are not only about helping that along, but quite seriously discussing changes we can make in our daily habits.
“These small efforts to reduce food waste create positive change and inspire others to take action about the urgent issue of food waste and food security,” says CEO of OzHarvest Ronni Kahn. To their credit too, University of Adelaide eateries have been donating food to OzHarvest since 2011, donating more than 42,000 meals, equivalent to more than 14,000kg of food which would to date which would have ended up in landfill.
Members of the public are encouraged to get involved by making a personal pledge to change their eating behaviour and reduce food waste via #PledgeAPlate. You can pledge a plate by making a meal out of leftovers, rescued or saved ingredients, taking a photo and uploading it on social media with the hashtag #PledgeAPlate and fundraise via www.pledgeaplate.com. And then you’re encouraged to nominate someone else to take part via social media. You know the drill.
OzHarvest’s Eat.Think.Save will take place on Monday, July 25, 11.30am-2pm at the University of Adelaide, Goodman Lawns on North Tce. For more details, please visit the OzHarvest site.
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