Reducing food waste

A Transition Bro Gwaun project to reduce food waste has been awarded funding by Arwain Sir Benfro.

Arwain Sir Benfro – the Local Action Group (LAG) for Pembrokeshire, administered by PLANED has provided funding of £14,980 Transition Bro Gwaun (TBG) for their reducing food waste project. This is funded through the LEADER programme, which is part of the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014 – 2020, Funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.

The funding will help TBG spread the message of reducing food waste to a wider audience at food festivals, agricultural shows, community and environmental events around the County.  The project will give cookery demonstrations and presentations, and use fun activities including food tasting and guessing games which help people better understand food safety, food labelling and the value of surplus food.

TBG will be developing educational activities to help people, particularly young people, learn how to make best use of food and to waste less. This will include workshops with the community, local schools and youth groups.

New ways to make use of some of the most wasted foods will be explored. For example bread can be used to make beer (see www.toastale.com) Root vegetables, fruit and other vegetables can be made into products like crisps, pickles and preserves

Transition Re-distribution of Food will be developed to enable more organisations to use the surplus food that supermarkets and stores are keen to give to local community groups and charities.  TBG already work with 3 local groups and will recruit more to the scheme, sharing knowledge, skills and resources so they can set up similar projects and help spread the message that it’s OK and safe to eat surplus food.

TBG’s surplus food project has been steadily growing since the community café opened in June 2013.  The 11 tonnes of food now diverted each year, mostly from landfill, will have reduced costs for retailers and the local authority by approximately £30,000 per year (based on findings from WRAP), and saved approximately 28 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Arwain Sir Benfro supports project ideas from local community groups, organisations and businesses. As the Local Action Group for Pembrokeshire, it brings together a mix of local community representatives, business, third sector, local authority partners.