Giving waste a makeover

Non Profit ID card: present your project/organisation/campaign

Questions answered by Kelvin Cheung, Director FoodCycle

Where are you based? London

– What are you called? FoodCycle

– What are you doing and why? FoodCycle tackles food poverty and food waste by combining young volunteers, surplus food and a free kitchen space to create nutritious meals for people affected by food poverty. We do this because we believe in a world where everyone should have access to good wholesome food and we believe that no good food should ever be wasted.

– Do you have a website/email? www.foodcycle.org.uk, or kelvin@foodcycle.org.uk

 

– Do you have a Twitter/facebook link/name? FoodCycleUK on Twitter

http://www.facebook.com/pages/FoodWorks/102276213537?ref=ts

– What makes you so special? We’re special because we utilise ‘surplus’ resources, so essentially, we create beautiful nutritious meals out of nothing! We do it with very little resources, and we’ve modelled it so you can basically start it anywhere. The food we cook is amazing. We do this every week, all year long, all across the UK!

 

The turning point

– How did you start? With a borrowed idea, a gmail account, my MacBook, and lots of great help from friends and strangers. FoodCycle was inspired by the work of The Campus Kitchens Project (CKP) in the United States. CKP has been in operation since 2001 and currently working in 15 colleges, universities and high schools.

– What keeps you going every day? Frustration. Frustration and anger that in a country such as the UK, there are thousands of tonnes of perfectly good food thrown out every day, while in the same community, there are people who suffer from food poverty and malnutrition as well.

– Who is your target? People who are in need of a healthy meal and those who are interested in learning more about food and healthy cooking.

– How are you financed? We are a grant based charity that is diversifying its income streams as we develop as an organisation.

 

The challenge

– A proud moment? When that first meal was served in May 2009. It wasn’t anything fancy. It was in fact far from perfect. But we pulled it off and it was the start of something big.

– A problem you face? Trying to expand our movement as fast and as hard as we can and not blowing up or imploding in the process. You have to hit the brakes sometimes and get an overview of the situation.

– Your personal motto when things get hard? Keep your eye on the prize and then just do whatever you have to do to get there (provided that it is all legal).

– Another cool project/organisation/campaign you would like to recommend?

MyBnk (http://www.mybnk.org/) – they are awesome because they work with young people on financial literacy in a fun and interactive way. Debt and financial mismanagement on the micro and macro level is just so common now. I wish everybody had this knowledge when they were growing up. It’s more important than your trigonometry, Shakespeare and laws of gravity combined.

www.foodcycle.org.uk

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