The initiative, which is a partnership between FareShare South West, the Nationwide Caterers Association (NCASS) and A Greener Festival, most recently worked closely with traders and festival-goers at WOMAD to ensure that edible food didn’t end up in landfill.
The team collected edible surplus food from 50% of the traders at the festival. The remaining 50% had no leftover food to five, which is a hugely positive step as the traders are becoming more aware of the stock levels they need to satisfy hungry festival goers, without generating significant levels of waste.
Emma Dyer, project manager at EighthPlate, said: “WOMAD is the second festival that we have attended this summer and we were once again overwhelmed by the generosity and passion from the traders and festival-goers to get involved.
“At Glastonbury earlier this year, we salvaged over ten tonnes of edible food including 4,000 bread rolls, 300 eggs and 600 carrots. From this we were able to provide roughly 24,000 meals for those most in need, including lamb tagine, meatballs and lots of bread and butter pudding!
"The initial count of four tonnes from WOMAD includes 2000 bread rolls, 200 onions, 250 litres of milk and even 100 cabbages! The collection will give us enough to make around 10,000 meals for local charities including French onion soup with dumplings, panzanella and lots more bread and butter pudding!"
Mark Laurie, Director at NCASS says "Festivals are estimated to spend £30,000 on managing the amount of waste which is leftover. We are working closely with our members to ensure that they review the amount of food that they take on to festival sites, in an effort to reduce waste.
This work is beginning to pay off with only 50% of traders able to donate unused food. The EighthPlate project is a fantastic way of being able to solve the issue of leftover edible food waste, whilst also feeding 34,000 people who are most in need"
EighthPlate will be collecting from more festivals during the summer including Wilderness, Boomtown, Shambala, and End of the Road.