Environmental charity Hubbub has launched a new £200,000 fund to encourage creative solutions to tackling food waste.
The ‘Eat it Up’ fund has been set up in the hope of finding ideas to address pre-farmgate waste and prevent food being wasted at the manufacturing stage. Small businesses, social enterprises, local authorities and universities can all apply for a grant of £40,000 to test new ideas and progress others further.
According to WRAP 6.4 million tonnes of edible food are wasted each year by UK retailers, caterers, restaurants and households.
Supermarkets have sought to address the problem, with actions like removing ‘best before’ labels and refill schemes, but according to food redistribution charity the Felix Project, the industry generates 3 million tonnes of edible surplus food each year.
Subscribe to Sustainability Beat for free
Sign up here to get the latest sustainability news sent straight to your inbox each morning
Applications for the scheme, which is being supported by Starbucks via the brand’s 5p coffee cup charge, are open until July 21.
Also with the support of the multinational coffee retailer, the social enterprise has expanded its food redistribution service Food Connect, which uses zero-emission vehicles to deliver good quality surplus food for community groups to share.
“The Eat it Up fund has been created to stimulate innovation in tackling food waste, which is a big contributor to climate change,” said Hubbub head of food Ellen Rutherford.
“So many resources go into growing, processing, packing, storing and transporting food”
“There are lots of interesting ideas out there and this new fund will help organisations to test new concepts and get their ideas off the ground.”
Starbucks director of sustainability Jacqui Wetherly said: “We are proud to be supporting our long-standing partners, Hubbub, with the launch of the Eat it Up Fund, as these projects will be the starting point for us to understand more about the levers of change and help inform society’s response to food waste across the country.”
