Taste the Difference: The Real Junk Food Project

At a time when hundreds of thousands of Britons are having to turn to food banks, the fact that in the UK we throw away an estimated 15 million tonnes of food every year can leave a bitter taste in your mouth. 

Step up The Real Junk Food Project, a movement aiming to help bring down the amount of avoidable food waste in the UK by intercepting food that would otherwise go to waste from supermarkets, restaurants and other sources. The food is intercepted by arrangment with these sources and then turned into nutritious meals for anyone and everyone, offered on a ‘pay as you feel’ donation basis. 

Originally launched by former chef Adam Smith in Leeds in 2013, The Real Junk Food Project now has around 40 other cafes across the country, as well as interest from abroad. As a network, it has intercepted over 67 tonnes of food and fed almost 40,000 people. 

Now, two of the movement's newest recruits, Gabby Holmes and Natalie Hughes-Crean, are bringing the project to Liverpool. 

It all started last November, when Holmes fired off a quick email to Smith to see if there was a way she could get involved with the project in Liverpool. Smith replied, asking simply: "Do you fancy starting something?" A couple of weeks later, while searching online for ways to get involved with reducing food waste, Hughes-Crean came across the Facebook page Holmes had set up for The Real Junk Food Project Liverpool.

Fast forward six months, and The Real Junk Food Project Liverpool has over 40 volunteers and has catered numerous events across the city, not to mention hosting its own ‘Binner Party’ evenings.

"We held our first Binner Party at The Brink on Mother’s Day," Hughes-Crean tells The Skinny. "We cooked for 35 to 40 people using 43 kilos of intercepted food. The menu was pretty amazing; we had whole salmon, a huge range of cured meats, soups, Danish pastries. At all our events we aim to provide vegetarian and vegan options, too." 

An obvious challenge is the inability to plan menus in advance. "We never know what’s going to be intercepted," Holmes explains, "but that’s all part of the fun! Thinking on our feet and working out what we can make. It’s like Ready Steady Cook but on a massive scale.

"We love when people are shocked by our food. I think some people have this idea that we’re going to be cooking using kitchen scraps but the food we intercept is absolutely perfect and is still in its packaging. If we didn’t tell people, they’d never know they were eating intercepted food."

The Real Junk Food Project uses a ‘pay as you feel’ basis, but, Hughes-Crean points out, there’s no emphasis on a strictly financial payment and people can donate their time or skills. 

"At our Mother’s Day event we had one woman pay in boxes of spices; another guy offered to make us a video, someone else offered to bring us along to networking events.

"We’d never turn anyone away and we don’t want people to feel that the only way they can pay us is with money. If you’ve got a skill, or even if you just offer to help us wash up, this is all just as important to us."

Holmes and Hughes-Crean are currently on the lookout for premises and plan on having a pop-up within the next month, with the aim to keep this open for around three months. Interest from landlords or investors could see them moving to a permanent location.

Behind all the cooking there is a very important message they want to get across: food waste is just part of a much bigger problem with the way we distribute and produce food. Projects like this can help draw attention to the problems that exist. 

The pair are quick to point out that the 'food insecure' – the term for people who aren’t always sure where their next meal is coming from – are not just the homeless and unemployed. Increasingly, those in full-time employment are having to turn to food banks as they struggle to make ends meet in the current market. They’re us; they are our friends and neighbours. 

"The amount of food waste in the UK is criminal," states Hughes-Crean. "That’s why, as well as doing the cooking and promotion of our events, we’re also logging all the food we intercept and using these figures to help educate and inform the public." 

"In the long term we want to see more education about food waste," Holmes adds. "And, obviously, we’d like to see a massive reduction in the food that is wasted – ideally, we’ll work ourselves out of a job!" 

It’s hard not to be impressed by the passion and effort these women and their volunteers are putting into the project. And, while complaining about food waste and food poverty is necessary to raise awareness, it’s great to see a group of people inspired to make a real difference.

"Before catering an event last year, I was in my kitchen baking cakes until 4am," says Hughes-Crean. "There were so many, I was making them in roasting tins! It is a lot of man hours, but we wouldn’t do it [if we] didn’t really believe in what The Real Junk Food Project stands for. It’s a lot of hard work but it’s a real labour of love."