River Cottage

The Feeding the 5000 team will this week treat 5,000 members of the public to a free hot lunch made entirely out of food that would otherwise have been wasted, such as fresh but cosmetically imperfect fruit and vegetables.

The event, held in Trafalgar Square on Friday 18 November, is being supported by Hugh and the Mayor of London in partnership with Fareshare, FoodCycle, Love Food Hate Waste and Friends of the Earth.

It will offer live cooking demonstrations by leading chefs (including Thomasina Myers, Valentine Warner and Arthur Potts Dawson) public interactive apple pressing, mass-vegetable sorting with partner charity FareShare, and a live pig enclosure where food waste will be recycled as livestock feed.

All activities will showcase positive solutions to existing food waste problems.

It will also invite individuals to sign a public declaration: “I pledge to cut my own food waste and I want businesses to do the same”.

At the same time, businesses will be invited to respond by signing their own pledge undertaking to cut food waste in accordance with a new online policy guidance tool developed by the Feeding the 5000 team.

The Mayor of London will attend the event and serve the first curry. The Bishop of London and Rosie Boycott will speak about food waste issues on stage. The event will take place three days after WRAP release their updated food waste figures for the UK.

“The Feeding of the 5,000 is a fantastic initiative, recognising that food is our most precious resource, and should never be squandered," says Hugh.

"Tristram Stuart and his inspirational team are turning an incipient problem into a joyous, upbeat solution," he adds.

"I’d urge everyone to sign the Feeding the 5000 pledge, here on our website [below], as a call for action from businesses and governments to end the global food waste scandal.”

• Sign the pledge below, and visit the website: www.feeding5k.org