Sick of food waste? Serve it at your wedding!

Did you know one-third of all food produced is wasted – most of which is fit for human consumption? Charlotte and Nick Baker wanted to tackle the problem at their wedding.

The British couple asked Fur Clemt Real Junk Food Café in Wigan (a food waste charity) to feed their 135 guests a three-course meal made from ingredients that would have otherwise gone to landfill.

The food waste charity intercepts food that is safe to eat but is heading for the landfill and make it available to their community. Run by Shirley Southwood with partner Ann Fairhurst, Shirley spoke to The Guardian: “We’d never catered for a wedding before and I had a few sleepless nights wondering exactly what food would come in!”

The day before the wedding, they were given a load of frozen chicken a few days from its expiry date (the meat was safe to eat – the seller was simply struggling to shift it) and trays full of fruit. They served chicken with white wine and mushrooms as the main course – with a vegetarian chili and rice as a meat-free alternative – and a fruit salad topped with clotted cream as a desert.

But the couple didn’t stop at the food; they made sure their other choices were as zero waste as possible. Charlotte’s wedding dress and her bridesmaids’ dresses were all sourced from charity shops, decorations were made from discarded bike wheels, junk mail was turned into origami and the flowers were grown by Charlotte’s mother.

The couple hopes that others will be inspired to do the same: “The ethos of the day and our lives together is that of an ethical foundation. We are aware that weddings can be an opportunity for obscene over-expense and excess and we decided to minimize our contribution to this trend.”

We wish them a long and happy marriage!