Council events leave a pleasant taste in the mouth!
Live cookery demonstrations will once again take place on Oxfordshire streets over the coming weeks to highlight how people can save money by wasting less food. Organised by Oxfordshire Waste Partnership (OWP) and supported with donations from local food supplier Fresh Direct (these events will show how easy it is to use up some of those foods that may normally get thrown away).
Over the past eighteen months council officers have been encouraging people to Love Food Hate Waste and over 10,000 across the county have made a pledge to do something to waste less food.
Paul Mocroft from OWP has been coordinating the Love Food Hate Waste campaign on behalf of the county and district councils. He says: "Our mobile kitchen got such a great response from the public last year we decided to get out on the streets again with some new recipes. As well as grabbing a tasty bite, people will be able to pick up a free recipe book to have a go when they get home."
The events are being held around British Food Fortnight, the traditional time for Harvest Festival. The team are giving advice on stocking the perfect store cupboard so that many dishes can easily be created from seasonal produce and items that are often discarded.
Professional chef, Ilja Harvey of Pudding Pie Cookery School will be running the demonstrations. She says: "As a nation we have an obsession with television cookery programmes and celebrity chefs, but despite all this we still waste billions of pounds of good food. While we’re not trying rival Delia or Jamie, we hope to be able to inspire people to whip up a new dish from items that they otherwise may not have considered."
The Love Food Hate Waste cooking team will be at markets, food festivals, supermarkets and university freshers' fairs until 8 October.
OWP coordinator Wayne Lewis says: "Not only does wasting less food save us money at home, but it saves councils' too. Over the last year the council-tax payer has saved a massive £50,000 by us not putting so much food into landfill."
Timetable of events:
- 17 September, Abingdon Farmers' Market, Abingdon Market Place, 8.30am - 1.30pm
- 17 September, Demonstration Kitchen, Food & Wine Festival, Oxford Castle, 4pm - 4.30pm
- 18 September, Food & Wine Festival, Oxford Castle:
- demonstration kitchen 11am - 11:30am
- Love Food Hate Waste workshops, 1pm, 2pm and 3pm
- information stand, castle gardens, 11am - 6pm
- 19 September, Demonstration Kitchen, Food & Wine Festival, Oxford Castle, 11am - 11.30am
- 21 and 22 September, Oxford Brookes University Freshers' Fair
- 23 September, Sainsbury's Wantage, 10am - 3pm
- 24 September, Sainsbury's Didcot, 10am - 3pm
- 25 September, Thame Food Festival, outside Thame Town Hall, 9am - 5pm
- 26 September, Wyevale Garden Centre, Bicester, 10am - 4pm
- 27 September, Tesco, Cowley Retail Park, Oxford 10am - 4pm
- 28 September, Templars Square Shopping Centre, Cowley, 10am - 4pm
- 29 September, Chipping Norton Market, 9am - 3pm
- 30 September Co-operative Supermarket, Carterton, 10am - 4pm
- 2 October, Kidlington Market 9am - 3pm
- 3 October Banbury Canal Day, Outside the Mill Arts Centre, 10.30am - 5pm
- 6 - 8 October, Oxford University Freshers' Fair.
