over four tonnes of edible food surplus collected at WOMAD

WOMAD 2015

Thursday 23rd to Sunday 26th July 2015
Charlton Park , Malmesbury, Wiltshire, SN16 9DG, England MAP
£165 for three days

Daily capacity: 40,000

EighthPlate the Food waste project has collected over four tonnes of surplus edible food from WOMAD Festival this year to redistribute to the most vulnerable in society.

The project, which was launched at Glastonbury Festival earlier this year, is an initiative led by FareShare South West, supported by The Nationwide Caterers Association (NCASS) and A Greener Festival; it has been established to donate unsold food to a range of charities across the South West.

The EighthPlate team collected the edible surplus food from 50% of the traders at the festival. The remaining 50% of traders had no leftover food to give, which is a hugely positive step as the traders are becoming more aware of the stock levels that they need to satisfy hungry festival goers, without generating significant levels of food waste.

The project intends to salvage 60 tonnes of unsold food at events this year, which will provide 143,000 meals for the most vulnerable, distributing the produce amongst food banks and soup kitchens in the South West.

At Glastonbury, (as reported here), the team are still in the process of collecting the leftover food which is estimated to exceed 10 tonnes and has so far included 4,000 bread rolls, 300 eggs, 250 sausages, 600 carrots, and 90 lettuces!

Emma Dyer, Project Manager at EighthPlate said, "WOMAD is the second festival that we have attended this summer and we were once again overwhelmed by the generosity and passion from the traders and festival-goers to get involved. At Glastonbury earlier this year, we salvaged over ten tonnes of edible food including 4,000 bread rolls, 300 eggs and 600 carrots. From this we were able to provide roughly 24,000 meals for those most in need, including lamb tagine, meatballs and lots of bread and butter pudding!"

She added, "The initial count of four tonnes from WOMAD includes 2000 bread rolls, 200 onions, 250 litres of milk and even 100 cabbages! The collection will give us enough to make around 10,000 meals for local charities including French onion soup with dumplings, panzanella and lots more bread and butter pudding."

Mark Laurie, Director at NCASS concluded, "Festivals are estimated to spend £30,000 on managing the amount of waste which is leftover. We are working closely with our members to ensure that they review the amount of food that they take on to festival sites, in an effort to reduce waste. This work is beginning to pay off with only 50% of traders able to donate unused food. The EighthPlate project is a fantastic way of being able to solve the issue of leftover edible food waste, whilst also feeding 34,000 people who are most in need."

EighthPlate will be collecting unwanted packaged food from more festivals during the summer including Wilderness, BoomTown, Shambala, and End of the Road.

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