World’s first Community Fridge Network to double in size

Charities, Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

The world’s first Community Fridge Network will double in size by the end of 2020 thanks to National Lottery funding, environmental charity Hubbub announced today. Following the success of the first 50 Community Fridges, the charity aims to support the opening of a further 50 sites over the next 22 months. 

Founded by Hubbub in July 2017, the Community Fridge Network and fridges within the Network have been funded by backers including The National Lottery Community Fund, Sainsbury’s, The Rothschild Foundation, Bosch, North London Waste Authority, the Morrison’s Foundation, Samsung and the Climate Challenge Fund. The Community Fridge Network launched with the aim of reducing food waste in the UK. Community Fridges provide a place for local residents and businesses to donate surplus food, which is available for anyone in the community to take – with each Fridge on average saving half a tonne of food per month. 

As well as reducing food waste, the Fridges encourage a spirit of sharing and can help strengthen community bonds and increase local activities. In a survey of 21 Community Fridges, 50% of Fridges said people are sharing skills, 45% stated their Community Fridge is linked to cooking and growing workshops and 30% said people are sharing other household items. 

Food waste remains a huge issue in the UK, with £13 billion of edible food thrown away from our homes every year5 and a further £3 billion of food wasted by the hospitality and food service sector. With the opening of the 50th Community Fridge, the Network is redistributing an average of 25 tonnes of food each month, the equivalent of approximately 50,000 meals. 

To celebrate the success of the Community Fridge Network, Hubbub has joined forces with 2013 MasterChef winner, Natalie Coleman who will be visiting Food Academy Community Fridge in Newham on 6th March 2019 to make delicious dishes with the ingredients she discovers there. The recipes will be uploaded to the Hubbub website and social channels after the visit. 

Natalie Coleman, 2013 MasterChef winner and chef said: “I am very excited to be part of Hubbub’s campaign as Community Fridges are really helping to tackle and raise awareness of the food waste issue. I have been guilty of throwing food out unnecessarily in the past but since becoming a chef I realise that we can cut down on waste and use it to create new dishes or snacks. I am looking forward to visiting the Community Fridge in Newham where I can share some of my ideas and recipes to turn old ingredients into new exciting dishes.

Trewin Restorick, Founder and CEO, Hubbub said: “We’re thrilled with how successful Community Fridges have been and the rapid growth of the Network. The Fridges not only save valuable food, they help bring people together and have become real community hubs.  Some people had doubts at the outset as to whether the Community Fridge Network would work, but the Fridges have developed to be positive, social spaces that have proven the doubters wrong.  We’d encourage anyone interested in visiting or opening a Fridge to visit our website and we’d love even more businesses to get involved as demand is outstripping supply in some areas.”

James Harcourt, England Director at The National Lottery Community Fund, said: “Thanks to National Lottery players another 50 Community Fridges are set to open across the UK. We are proud to be supporting Hubbub which gives communities the opportunity to learn new skills, and create a healthier and greener lifestyle together by sharing food and reducing waste. Not only will this strengthen communities, but also enable them to thrive.” 

Also known as ‘Solidarity’ or ‘Honesty’ Fridges, Community Fridges have been successfully introduced in Spain, Germany as well as the UK. Hubbub’s Community Fridge Network provides free advice, resources and support to Community Fridge organisers around challenges such as legal requirements and food hygiene, as well as creating opportunities for communities to share experiences and learn from each other.

More information on The Community Fridge Network, including a map of Fridge locations and advice for those interested in setting up a Community Fridge can be found at https://www.hubbub.org.uk/the-community-fridge.  

Waitrose & Partners launches £1m initiative to tackle UK plastic pollution

Charities, Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

Waitrose & Partners will today launch a £1 million grant fund to give money to projects designed to reduce unnecessary plastic and tackle plastic pollution.

Plan Plastic – The Million Pound Challenge will award money, over one year, to projects that can demonstrate an impact on plastic pollution now and in the future. The retailer is partnering with environmental charity Hubbub to support the chosen projects and measure the impact of the grants.

The £1 million fund has been raised from the sale of 5p carrier bags and grants will range from £150,000 to £300,000.

Applications for Plan Plastic are open until 24th February and will be welcomed from a range of organisations including charities, academic bodies, social enterprises, and schools & colleges, across the following project areas:

· Plastics in the community – projects encouraging and enabling plastic recycling and the circular economy linked to social impact, for example, promoting wellbeing in the community.

· Education – campaigns aimed at children and young people to raise awareness and change behaviour to reduce plastic pollution.

· Public behaviour change – projects inspiring and enabling new ways of shopping and consuming.

· Food, agriculture and farming – projects focusing on finding alternatives, reducing use, and increasing reuse of plastics in the food, agriculture and farming industries.

· Micro plastics – projects aimed at identifying the impact, reducing the prevalence and preventing micro plastic pollution.

Organisations can apply via the Plan Plastic – The Million Pound Challenge website at www.planplasticfund.com.

An independent expert panel made up of representatives from academia, industry, non-governmental organisations, business and a senior Waitrose Partner, will convene in April to review the submissions. The chosen grantees will be announced in May 2019.

Tor Harris, Head of CSR, Health & Agriculture for Waitrose & Partners, said: “We hope the fund will help find new and effective ways of accelerating action to rethink how we all use and dispose of plastic now and in the future. We take this issue very seriously, and are making progress all the time, but we’re determined to maintain our momentum as well as supporting others to do the same.”

Trewin Restorick, CEO and Founder, Hubbub said: “Waitrose’s new grant fund is tremendously exciting as it will support innovative thinking on how to combat the issue of plastic pollution. We’ll be on the lookout for entries that really demonstrate a tangible impact and that will have a longer-term legacy beyond the grant funding stage. We’d encourage any eligible organisation working in this space to apply via the website.

Waitrose & Partners is passionate about reducing its impact on the environment and the amount of plastic waste it creates. The retailer has committed to removing all 5p plastic bags from its shops by March 2019 and will also replace loose fruit and vegetable bags with a home compostable alternative by spring 2020. By doing this it will cut almost 134 million bags each year from the environment, which equates to 500 tonnes of plastic.

Waitrose & Partners has also pledged not to sell any own-label products in black plastic packaging beyond 2019 and has already hit its target to remove black plastic on its fresh meat, fish, poultry, fruit and veg. Waitrose is committed to making all its own-label packaging widely recyclable, reusable or home compostable by 2023.

The Refill Revolution gains pace

Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

Today the Mayor of London, the #OneLess campaign and MIW Water Cooler Experts announced the installation of three new public drinking water fountains: two in one of the country’s busiest train stations, Liverpool Street, and one in Heart of Valentines Park in Redbridge. These fountains form part of a network of initially 20 fountains which are being installed across London over the coming weeks, with further plans to install more before the end of the year. With this summer being one of the hottest on record, these new public fountains will make it easier for Londoners to keep hydrated on the go without using single-use plastic water bottles, which could end up in the River Thames or our ocean.

The 20 fountains will go to sites through the London Drinking Fountain Fund, which was set up by #OneLess earlier this year. The sites are a mixture of busy shopping areas, business districts, universities, public visitor attractions, transport hubs, community spaces and public parks. They range from iconic, high footfall areas such as Windrush Square Brixton, the Natural History Museum, and the Horniman Museum and Gardens; to local community areas, such as Camberwell Green, North Acton Station Square, Bexleyheath Town Centre, and Paddington Recreation Ground.  

A report released in April 2018 by Keep Britain Tidy and BRITA1 found that 78% of people in the UK would like there to be greater availability of free tap water. This definitely rings true in London – the #OneLess Drinking Fountain Fund received an unexpected number of bids from properties and landowners to take part in the initiative.  

“We were taken aback by the number of applications we received to install drinking fountains across London. There is definitely huge appetite in London to stop using single-use plastic and establish a new culture of refilling,” said Dr Heather Koldewey, Director of the #OneLess campaign and Head of Marine and Freshwater at ZSL (Zoological Society of London). “We are delighted to be working with the Mayor of London on this exciting initiative to reduce the plastic blight on the ocean and firmly establish London as a city that no longer uses plastic bottled water.” 

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, said: “Water fountains are a simple but effective way to encourage people to ditch daily ‘pointless’ plastic bottles and instead refill reusable bottles. With the hot weather we’ve seen this summer, the demand is greater than ever for quick and easy ways of accessing free drinking water and I’m pleased to confirm the locations for the first of our 20 new public water fountains. Some of these are already attracting thousands of visitors a day and we are working on plans to secure many more across London.” 

All drinking fountains in the initiative will be supplied by MIW Water Cooler Experts, a #OneLess champion and partner of the London Drinking Fountain Fund. Mike Winter, CEO of MIW Water Cooler Experts said, “It’s great to see London lead the way in reinstating a public supply of drinking water. Modern refill stations have come a long way from the Victorian fountains that used to fill the city. They’re now robust, hygienic and easy to maintain and there’s no reason why more cities shouldn’t follow London’s example to help people stay refreshed on the go without damaging the planet.” 

The first of the new fountains was installed in Kingly Court, Carnaby back in March 2018, in collaboration with property owner Shaftesbury. Since the first week of June, when a water metre was fitted, almost 15,000 500ml bottles have been refilled from just this one unit. #OneLess and the Mayor of London worked with Network Rail to install two fountains in Liverpool Street station earlier this month, which between them have already dispensed 8,000 litres of drinking water, the equivalent of 16,000 water bottles. A further fountain followed last week in Heart of Valentines Park, Redbridge, and at least 16 more will now follow across the capital, accelerating London’s transformation from a city that currently gets through one billion plastic bottles of water a year, to a city where ‘refilling’ rules.  

Meliha Duymaz, Network Rail’s route managing director for Anglia, said: “I’m very excited about the benefits the water fountain will bring. Millions of people use Liverpool Street station every day and this free service will make a difference to them and the environment by reducing single-use plastics.” 

Leader of Redbridge Council, Councillor Jas Athwal, said: “As part of being a greener borough and a better place to live, we are committed to bringing water fountains and bottle refill points into operation across our borough.  Providing simple ways of refilling and accessing free water not only cuts down on plastic bottle usage but helps people stay healthy and hydrated.  We are delighted to be partnering with the Mayor of London and #Oneless London Drinking Fountain Fund on this new drinking water facility, which I hope will be a popular addition to Valentines Park.”

Pioneering #FoodSavvy campaign launched to tackle food waste in East Anglia

Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

With the average East Anglian family wasting £810 of edible food per year, a pioneering campaign has been launched to help combat the issue of food waste in the region.

Norfolk and Suffolk councils have joined forces with environmental charity Hubbub to launch Food Savvy, a campaign that aims to take significant steps towards cutting food waste across both counties. The initial stage will run for two years and then Food Savvy’s most successful elements will be scaled up to meet the seven-year target of reducing food waste by 20% by 2025 in line with national framework, the Courtauld Commitment and the global Sustainable Development Goals.   

The campaign marks the first time Norfolk and Suffolk councils have come together on a food initiative of this scale and its ambitious vision puts the region at the forefront of the UK’s efforts to combat food waste. Food Savvy’s uniqueness also lies in the way it will bring together an entire cross section of the community to tackle the issue, involving businesses, schools, community groups, as well as influencers like chefs, food celebrities, lifestyle bloggers and vloggers. 

Kicking off this week, Food Savvy will include a range of exciting activities and programmes designed to raise awareness of the impact of food waste and give people the tools they need to make a difference.  

 A taster of the initiatives to come over the next two years: 

  • Seasonal food waste campaigns to help households save during peak times of waste. Activities will include Halloween-themed Pumpkin Rescue, community cooking programme Kitchen Love in collaboration with NEFF, Christmas campaign Festive Freeze and pre-holiday food saving campaign Travellers Check. These seasonal campaigns will use peak times of wastage throughout the year and fun hooks to talk about food waste year–round.  
  • Entertaining educational initiatives focused on key behaviours relating to waste, such as date label confusion and food storage dos and don’ts. 
  • Fun, family-friendly events centred on specific highly wasted items and showcasing the counties’ food producing heritage. 
  • Food Savvy challenge where residents will be encouraged to save £70 a month by preventing food waste. 
  • Innovative trials with householders, bloggers and vloggers. 
  • Cross curricular school resources to help educate young people on food wastage.  
  • Employee engagement campaigns to spur workplace involvement. 

To find out more and get involved in Food Savvy people can visit www.foodsavvy.org.uk and follow #FoodSavvy on social media. While the campaign is initially launching in Norfolk and Suffolk, how-to guides will be created so other UK counties can create and scale their own campaigns. 

It is expected Food Savvy will strike a chord with East Anglian residents. A recent poll of those in Norfolk and Suffolk showed the majority (86%) are worried by food waste and 53% admit they feel guilty when they throw away food. A further 39% say they’d like help reducing the amount they waste.

Quick tips for households wanting to cut food waste straight away, based on habits revealed in the poll:  

  1. Plan ahead – more than six in 10 residents don’t plan their meals before shopping.  Take a moment to think about the week ahead and when you’ll be eating at home. Plan a couple of meals ahead, make a shopping list and buy only what you need. 
  1. Check your fridge – 30% don’t look in the fridge before shopping. Give your fridge the once over before you get groceries to ensure you don’t double up. 
  1. Store food carefully – 31% don’t store potatoes in a cool, dark place, meaning they go off quicker. Research how to store fresh items to keep them at their best. 
  1. Make the most of your leftovers – Four in 10 East Anglian residents love banana bread, a great way to use up over-ripe fruit. If you cook too much or can’t finish a meal, pack it for lunch. Even if you’re eating out, ask for a ‘doggy bag’. 
  1. Love your freezer – many residents don’t realise that popular fridge staples can be frozen – for instance, 41% have never frozen milk and 46% didn’t know it’s possible to freeze cheese. If you cook too much or forget to eat something near its use by date, chances are you can freeze it and eat it later.  

Trewin Restorick, CEO of Hubbub said: “The impact food waste has on average family budgets is incredible.  It’s also costing councils millions and is bad news for the environment.  We hope that by showing people the impact of food waste and helping them to make a positive change, the campaign will benefit not only the community and the wider environment but individual’s own pockets, too. We’re not talking about massive lifestyle changes – small changes really can make a big difference.”  

Martin Wilby, of Norfolk’s Environment Transport and Development Committee said: “After the success of our own county–wide food waste initiative Plan Eat Save which launched in 2016, we’re aware that people’s interest in reducing food waste is growing. We’re delighted to be partnering with Suffolk Councils and Hubbub so we can build further on this initiative and encourage even more people to be smarter with their food and help cut waste across the whole region.” 

Cllr David Bowman, Chair of the Suffolk Waste Partnership said: “Suffolk households throw away a staggering 50,000 tonnes of food every year. As a rural county producing many delicious foods and drinks, this is terrible wastage and something we must tackle. We are therefore thrilled to be launching this collaborative project with Hubbub and our colleagues at Norfolk County Council.  We are also inviting local people, community groups and businesses to join us on this innovative journey that will help save families money and protect our beautiful region.” 

Barley appointed by Borough Market

Charities, Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

Borough Market is London’s oldest food market, having been established over 1,000 years ago.  Today it is a vibrant, diverse market renowned for its exceptional produce, which is run as a charity for the benefit of the community.

Borough Market puts sustainability at the heart of its operations and Barley has been appointed to support with sustainability communications.

www.boroughmarket.org.uk

Barley blog: There’s more to food waste than wonky veg

featured news, Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

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*Big sigh*

*Eye roll*

*Silent weeping*

On Saturday the cross-party Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Select Committee released a report on food waste and it was a fairly depressing read. Food waste reductions have stalled.

How is it that 10 years on from the launch of Love Food Hate Waste – when the front pages of national newspapers were screaming out about the shocking levels of UK food waste – we’ve made such little progress? And why is it only now that a recommendation for a formal national food waste target is being put forward?

What I found particularly interesting is that aside from the BBC, practically every other national media outlet reporting on the launch of the report this weekend led on the angle about the sale of wonky veg in supermarkets.

Households produce 71% of post-farmgate waste, whilst retailers produce 2%. Yes, retailers do have a very important part to play and there is a lot of work to do in terms of supply chains and distribution but by far the media focus has been here and not on households.

We love blaming businesses but it’s imperative we look closer to home. Our homes. Where we chuck out hundreds of pounds worth of food every year.

Food Waste is a topic very close to my heart – I helped launch the Love Food Hate Waste campaign for WRAP back in 2007.  Part of this campaign’s success is that it didn’t wag the finger. Instead it provided positive and practical solutions and worked in collaboration with many other organisations, an approach we take with our client Hubbub on #PumpkinRescue and other engaging seasonal food waste campaigns.

I was pleased to see the select committee recommend that “the Government examine how lessons on food and food waste can be incorporated as part of the school curriculum”. But is a “lesson on food” the same as cookery? Many adults now don’t have the basic cookery skills or knowledge to use up leftovers themselves, so what hope does the next generation have? In my view, we need to get kids cooking in school and in the home and that’s supported by the research we conducted for Hubbub’s #CookSomethingGrand campaign, which found that a shocking 45% of 16 year olds have never cooked a family meal.  Perhaps we need a little less focus on nutritional theory and a little more on bubble and squeak.

The EFRA report also highlighted that whilst there was high awareness around the issue of food waste, it’s not being translated into action by households. I’m encouraged to see that WRAP has a new strategy for the campaign but with such huge cuts in funding from Central Government and the Devolved Administrations over the past few years, they have a monumental challenge ahead to achieve their goals. With such a wide variety of audiences and reasons for wasting food, more investment is needed to ensure they have a hope of actually changing these entrenched habits.

More than ever WRAP needs its partners to deliver and help spread the message to consumers. To innovate, to inspire collective action and to incentivise.

Whatever the outcome of the upcoming election, let’s hope the new Government prioritises the issue of food waste and in another 10 years I’m feeling a little more positive. And my teenage boys are cooking me dinner.

Laura Harrison, Associate, Barley Communications

Barley’s Laura Harrison speaks at Discovery Communities event

Food and Drink, news, Sustainability, Uncategorized

Laura Sainsbury'sBarley’s Laura Harrison was delighted to join with speakers from Sainsbury’s and others today at a Discovery Communities event at the Custard Factory in the heart of Birmingham’s creative quarter.

The day gave an opportunity for participants to learn about the innovative food waste campaigns being tested by Sainsbury’s and environmental charity Hubbub in Swadlincote, Derbyshire, to hear about the best campaigns from around Europe, to be informed of the latest behaviour change research and to gain insight into future food trends.

Laura talked about what makes an inspirational PR campaign, drawing on her experience of food waste campaigns for Hubbub and Love Food Hate Waste, amongst others.

Saving smashing pumpkins with #PumpkinRescue

Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

coverage-collageWow, what a week we’ve had!  On Wednesday we launched new research from Hubbub and Unilever highlighting the number of pumpkins going to waste as they were carved but not eaten – a whopping 15 million of them in the UK last year.

Launching on National Pumpkin Day we used the survey results to secure coverage across national media – broadcast, print and online.  By tailoring releases for each region and major city of the UK, we also achieved fantastic regional coverage – highlighting the food waste issue and directing consumers to their nearest #PumpkinRescue events.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-41CdYw9JM

Meanwhile, we secured the support of Celebrity Masterchef champion and mum, Lisa Faulkner, who took part in a packed day of radio interviews and the day’s #skydebate on Sky News.

We’re now nearing 100 pieces of coverage across broadcast, print and online and looking forward to totting up how many pumpkins we’ve helped save from a spooky end.

Happy Halloween!

Barley Blog: Health Secretary to ban large puds?

Food and Drink, Health & Social Care, news

bun-261677_640Communicating clear messages to tackle obesity seems to be getting harder. Witness May this year when the National Obesity Forum published a report which backed eating more fat. Dr Aseem Malhotra called for a change in message advocating: “eat fat to get slim, don’t fear fat, fat is your friend.” The result? Four Forum members resigned and the Royal Society for Public Health responded saying it was a “muddled manifesto of sweeping statements, generalisations and speculation.”

And what about government’s role?

The government’s childhood obesity strategy ignores one key message channel altogether – clamping down on marketing sugary drinks to children – which Public Health England and those on the National Obesity Alliance had advocated. Significant criticism has been levelled at the strategy and so the government has recently tried to wrestle back some control: cue last Friday’s front page of the Times with Jeremy Hunt’s call for restaurants to reduce sugar in puddings and cut portion sizes.

Reformulation – the jargon for cutting too much sugar, salt and fat from the food and drink we consume – no doubt has the potential to make a significant difference. If the food we buy is healthier to start with, we all win right? Seems logical. Some people will point out that puddings should be sweet – they are, after all, desserts or sweets.

Substance not size

Jeremy Hunt also called for smaller portion sizes. Whilst it seems rational that a smaller slice of chocolate cake will do you less harm than a bigger slice, is smaller size the right message? I remember speaking about this (over a good lunch of course) with a former client, Professor Jean Pierre Despres. He told me, it’s what you eat and the quality of the food on your plate that are more important, rather than portion sizes.

Genetics and obesity

Last week I listened to a different professor, John Wass, speak on obesity to a packed lecture theatre at the Royal College of Physicians. Prof Wass spoke about the data that suggest that a surprisingly high proportion of us may be genetically pre-disposed to being overweight. If your mother and father are obese, there’s a fair chance you will be too. But aren’t lots of us quite fatalistic about healthcare: if the message is obesity can be genetic, isn’t there a risk that too many of us will simply accept the situation and give up trying to lose weight. So communicators trying to get helpful information to the public will be more interested in another study which highlighted that despite a genetic predisposition to obesity, a healthy lifestyle including physical activity can lead to weight loss: most of us (but not all) can do something about our weight.

But there are solutions

Thankfully there are solutions for obesity. This is the message that we as communicators need to be pressing home. And there’s good reason to push – obesity is a financial headache for the NHS and it is now being linked with certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis and many more conditions no one wants. For most of us the solutions will revolve around what we eat; drinking more water and fewer SSBs; and how much exercise we can cram into our daily routine. For some people bariatric surgery is an effective option (more so than drugs apparently at the moment by a ratio of 3:1).

Clear communications

A whopping 66,159 academic articles have been published on obesity in the last ten years and the messaging on this issue is, at very best, fragmented. With so much scientific debate and disagreement, comms professionals have a leading role to play to ensure a consistent message to the public that can be understood and encourages action.

Here are my top tips for communications on obesity.

  • Stay positive and focus on the solutions people can take
  • Make use of the science that says it’s what you eat, drink and how much you move
  • Encourage measurement – particularly waist size and BMI
  • Strike innovative partnerships to tap into different audiences
  • Use a carrot, not a stick
  • And repeat. Again and again as obesity is possibly the biggest threat to our individual health and public finances. And surely one of the easiest to tackle.

James Ford, Partner, Barley Communications

Launching #CookSomethingGrand with Hubbub and Unilever

Food and Drink, news, Sustainability

hubbub_grandparents-day_infographic-04Today we’re delighted to launch #CookSomethingGrand with Hubbub and Unilever, the latest in a series of seasonal campaigns to tackle food waste in the home as part of their Joint Ambition for a Zero Food Waste Britain.

The campaign highlights the decline in cooking skills over the generations and calls on grandparents to pass on their kitchen skills to their grandchildren this Grandparents’ Day, Sunday 2nd October.

https://www.hubbub.org.uk/Event/cook-with-your-grandchild