Food Works Not Food Waste: Smaller Name, Bigger Mission

Since 2015, The Real Junk Food Project Sheffield has worked tirelessly to stop good food from going to landfill, saving 319 tonnes of food and serving up hundreds of thousands of meals to fill hungry bellies. As the city's largest food waste social enterprise, they tackle the problem through their pay-as-you-feel cafes in Upperthorpe and Norfolk Park, the Sharehouse Market on Carlisle Street which is open Monday to Saturday from 1-3pm, and their education programme and catering.

But food waste is an enormous problem, and in reality 319 tonnes accounts for just 0.1% of the food waste in our city. To put that into perspective on a global scale, if food waste were a country it would be the 3rd largest producer of carbon emissions on the planet.

So Real Junk Food are thinking big and they need your help to do even more. What they really need is a big walk-in fridge, some really big freezers, onsite kitchen facilities and a long-term warehouse lease, so they've launched a crowdfunding project to help secure a permanent home and to fully equip it in order to create a sustainable food hub for Sheffield. They're also changing their name, so from now on you can call them 'Food Works'. Their aims are to make a real dent in food waste, to feed people and to share skills.

They want to raise £50,000 and have lots of ace rewards on offer to say thank you, from £5 upwards. The crowdfunder will be running until Christmas Eve, so if you're able, they'd be very grateful for any contribution you can make. You can find the Crowdfunder page here.

And if you can't afford to donate, then you can help enormously by sharing the crowdfunder on social media: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Flick Jackson