Real pigs will join 5000 people in Trafalgar Square for a free lunch made from fresh ingredients saved from being chucked, as Friends of the Earth help highlight the scandal of food waste at the Feeding the 5000 event.
While organisers treat Londoners and Mayor Boris Johnson to apple juice and a meal made from wonky veg that would otherwise be wasted, four pigs at Friends of the Earth’s ’Pig Out’ stall will scoff leftover apple pulp, showing the potential for food scraps to feed farm animals.
Each year, from farm to fork, 16 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK, costing around £22bn. Even though a lot of this food could be eaten by people or diverted to feed farm animals, much of it ends up buried in landfill or incinerated.
Our intensive meat and dairy industry relies on animal feed imported from South America, where forests are trashed to make way for feed crops, with a devastating impact on local communities.
Friends of the Earth is calling for legally permissible surplus food in the UK to be diverted to feed animals – alongside boosting homegrown feed and British grazing this would help reduce UK farmers’ reliance on imported feed and protect people and forests overseas.
Friends of the Earth’s Senior Food Campaigner, Clare Oxborrow, said:
"It’s crazy that food scraps that could feed farm animals end up being buried or burned while farmers waste cash on imported feed that harms communities and forests overseas.
"The Government must make it easier for food that can’t be eaten by people to be fed to animals, such as schemes that link up food retailers and farmers."
