Eat for Free in Oakland on Saturday at Event to Fight Food Waste

On Saturday October 18th 2014, the first ever Feeding the 5000 event in the U.S. will take place at Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland. As part of a global campaign to catalyze action on tackling food waste, 5000 lunches made entirely out of fresh food that would otherwise be wasted will be served for free to the public to celebrate the delicious solutions and call for immediate action to tackle the problem. This groundbreaking event comes at a time when at least a third of the world’s food doesn’t get eaten!

The event, which runs between 12 p.m. and 5 p.m., is organized by End Food Waste and Feedback, the organization behind the Feeding the 5000 campaign, and in collaboration with a coalition of U.S. organizations including NRDC, GRACE Communications Foundation, Sustainable America and local organizations including St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County, Food Shift, People’s Grocery, Oakland Unified School District and the Ecology Center.

Feeding the 5000 Oakland will be a spectacular public celebration around solutions to food waste. There will be live cooking demonstrations by chefs and the public can learn about and participate in the solutions to food waste available at home and across the food supply chain. Feedback has used similar events to launch national food waste campaigns in cities around the world including London, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Dublin among others, and now will be in the U.S. for the first time.

Chef Peter Callis of St. Vincent de Paul of Alameda County will be creating the delicious soup recipe made from surplus vegetables including misshapen sweet potatoes, crooked carrots, and onions that were discarded because they are not cosmetically perfect or exceed demand. Other delectable dishes, including delicacies made from unusual cuts of meat will be cooked ‘live’ on stage by local chefs.

DJ FACT.50 will be playing food-inspired music throughout the day. Feeding the 5000 volunteers are harvesting hundreds of pounds of vegetables from nearby farms that would have been ploughed back in the soil because they don’t fit strict retail specifications.

The day before the event, volunteers including national food justice leaders Robert Egger and Rob Greenfield peeled and chopped hundreds of pounds of surplus fruit and vegetables at a ‘Disco Soup’ event at SVDP. All this will be accompanied by music and dancing in true celebratory style- part of an international movement where people come together to participate in food waste fighting actions in a party atmosphere.

At least a third of the world’s entire food production is currently wasted. Governments, businesses and individuals can help tackle the problem. Tristram Stuart, food waste author and founder of Feedback, explains: “’The U.S. wastes more food than any other country in the world; but it also has the most vibrant organizations who are actively tackling this global scandal. Feeding the 5000 is thrilled to be working with such an excellent coalition to highlight the many delicious solutions to food waste and how we can all help solve it. The food waste revolution is in full swing in Europe, with a 21% reduction
in household food waste in the UK alone. In a finite and precious world, it’s time to realize that food is too valuable to waste.

During and after the event citizens will be invited to sign a pledge showing their personal commitment to reduce their own food waste and calling for businesses to do the same using the principles of the food waste hierarchy.

Information submitted by Feeding the 5000

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