Feeding the 5000

30/11/09

On Wednesday 16 December, Trafalgar Square will host a free feast of biblical proportions: a modern day Feeding the 5000.

From 12-2pm, a partnership of campaigners, charities and prominent supporters will serve lunch to 5000 members of the public to highlight the problem of food waste, and the many practical ways to solve it. Rich countries like the UK currently waste up to half of their food supplies. All the food handed out on the day to passers-by will be made from fresh and nutritious ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted.

The menu will include hot soups made from vegetables cast out because they are not cosmetically perfect, a range of sandwiches and freshly-made fruit smoothies, pressed on the day by customised bicycles.

Organised by the author and food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart, Feeding the 5000 will highlight the work of the partner organisations, Save the Children; ActionAid; This is Rubbish; and FareShare. Supporters of the event include the Mayor of London; the Bishop of London; journalist and campaigner Rosie Boycott; and celebrity chef Thomasina Miers.

Amongst those present on the day will be the Bishop of London, who explains why he is supporting the campaign:

"This is a hungry world and yet in the UK we waste huge amounts of food. Jesus told his disciples after feeding the 5000 to 'gather up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost'.

"At the Feeding the 5000 event, 5000 people will be fed from ingredients which otherwise would have been thrown away. It will be an acted parable and a challenge to each one of us to examine our own larders and dustbins in order to reduce our impact on the environment. It will also alert us to the injustice of a world in which some have food to waste while others go hungry."