insideSUSSEX Magazine Issue 21 - November 2016 | Page 110

BUSINESS

FEED BELLIES NOT BINS:

The Real Junk Food
Project Brighton

In the UK alone, two million people are estimated to be malnourished. Shockingly though, we create
an estimated 15 million tonnes of food waste every year. The Real Junk Food Project Brighton is part
of the Real Junk Food Project, a network created by Adam Smith. It is a national and international
movement of cafes, projects and pop-ups with one core objective: to intercept food waste destined
for landfill and use it to feed people who need it on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. Polly Humphris spoke to
The Real Junk Food Project Brighton’s Adam Buckingham to get the skinny on feeding the world.

Hi Adam. What inspired the creation of
The Real Junk Food Project Brighton?
I was inspired to start The Real Junk Food
Project Brighton by the founder of the network,
Adam Smith. In 2014, I saw a video of him
driving around Leeds picking up ‘waste’ food,
cooking it up into healthy food in a cafe and
serving it on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. Having
been a chef for seven years and witnessed the
horrendous amounts of food that gets thrown
away, it resonated deeply with me; Adam’s idea
seemed like an incredible way to help people
from all walks of life and raise awareness
about the scale of the food waste problem,
so I decided to quit my job and start my own
company in Brighton. Best move I ever made!
How does it work?
We intercept food from pretty much anywhere
where it’s wasted, trust our senses with it rather
than dates on packets, then turn it into healthy,
nutritious meals, which we then serve to the
community on a ‘pay as you feel’ basis. We
have food donated to us from all across Sussex
that is deemed not fit for human consumption,

or no longer sellable. This can be because it
is past its best before date, or because the
packaging has been damaged in transit. To be
honest, two and a half years into this project
I’m still discovering more and more ridiculous
reasons that food is thrown away. Health and
safety and strict food safety standards mean
it’s safer to just throw food away, even when
it’s wrapped in five layers of packaging and has
been transported around the world. It’s such an
unbelievable waste of energy and resources.
Where do you get your ingredients?
We have strong relationships with several major
supermarkets, food businesses, farms, food
banks and small independent retailers. We
even have people donating surplus produce
from their allotments.
What’s the ethos behind the project and
what are the core objectives?
The ethos behind the project is simple: to save
food from the bin and feed it to people. The core
objective is to put ourselves out of business
really, by preventing food from being wasted

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in the first place. By raising awareness of the
sheer scale of the problem and how broken
and absurd the system is, we want to educate
people and change their attitudes. We need to
reengage people with food and help them to see
the true value of it again, not just its nutritional
value, but the energy that has gone into it making
it - the water, packaging, time and fossil fuels.  
What’s the biggest misconception about
the project?
The biggest misconception is that the food is
‘free’ and that it’s ‘for the homeless’. There is
no such thing as free food; all food comes at
a great cost. The food is also not solely for the
homeless or those on the poverty line; it is for
everyone. We are all human beings and we
all need food to survive. We are giving people
access to this food and the ‘pay as you feel’
model means that everyone has something to
give back as payment for the food. That might
be a donation of time, a skill, an idea, or a
monetary donation. It’s an all-inclusive model,
so that we all come together to tackle food
waste and learn more about it.