Environmental charity Hubbub has announced the six winners of the Eat It Up Fund who will each receive £40k to “creatively” tackle food waste.
Launched in July, the Eat It Up Fund called on small businesses, social enterprises, charities, local authorities and universities to develop projects that address food waste. The fund aims to invest in a range of initiatives that target waste on farms, at the manufacturing stage, from retailers and in households.
The fund is supported by the Starbucks 5p cup charge, which is applied each time a customer chooses to use a single-use cup. Six winners have been awarded grants of up to £40,000 to develop their ideas over the next 12 months with support from Hubbub.
We hope that these creative solutions will inspire others to think about what they can do to accelerate the movement to tackle food waste.
Mark Breen, Senior Creative Partner at Hubbub commented: “It’s been so inspiring to see the entries for the Eat It Up Fund – so much so that we awarded six projects with funding rather than five. Each of these projects is so unique and we are looking forward to seeing how each initiative develops.
“We hope that these creative solutions will inspire others to think about what they can do to accelerate the movement to tackle food waste.”
The winners of the Eat It Up Fund are:
Northampton Town FC Community Trust: Cobblers Tackle Food Waste
Hubbub says this community campaign uses Final Third and Planet League to offer a gamified experience that sets football fans and their friends and families challenges – ranging from turning their leftovers into new meals to transforming vegetable peelings into crisps. The campaign also plans to run a series of workshops on how to prevent food waste.
Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich
Hubbub says the NRI aims to upcycle brewer’s spent grain (BSG) via an industry partnership to create a meat alternative burger prototype. The project, led by Dr Parag Acharya and Dr Micael De Andrade Lima, combines shelf-life studies and eco-innovative extraction of BSG protein to formulate a plant-based meat analogue.
The Hornbeam Centre
The Hornbeam Centre aims to retrieve surplus food from farmers in East Anglia and South-East England before distributing it to food cooperatives, pantries, and other mutual-aid initiatives across Waltham Forest. With project partners The Better Food Shed and Organic Lea, they will connect farmers with five local groups to develop a redistribution model to support people at risk of experiencing food poverty, Hubbub says.
Tom’s Feast: Forgotten Feast
Headed up by eco-chef, food writer and food waste campaigner Tom Hunt, Tom’s Feast is aiming to develop an ice cream from surplus fruit, veg and dairy under the name “Forgotten Feast”.
Sow the City: Grounds to Grow
Manchester-based social enterprise Sow the City will collaborate with Starbucks stores to collect waste coffee grounds to cultivate mushrooms in. The oyster mushrooms they harvest will be packaged and distributed by e-bike for sale and to Hubbub’s Community Fridge Network. Spent mushroom blocks will then be repurposed as a soil conditioner and redistributed to Sow the City’s community garden network, Hubbub says.
The Wonki Collective
Hubbub says the funding will allow the Wonki Collective to advance its business-to-business matchmaking technology while supporting more manufacturers to identify surplus ingredients as early as possible to maximise nutritional and commercial value.
