Gloucester’s The King’s School is the first in the country to pioneer a brand-new initiative to save waste food from landfill.
Working with environmental enterprise, Surplus to Purpose, on Wednesday 26 January 2022 all meals at the school – including snacks from the tuck shop and food from the Dulverton café – were all made with produce destined to go to waste – with the school saving 335 kilograms of food from landfill in just one day.
With a mission to ‘feed bellies, not bins’, Surplus to Purpose intercepts waste food from the catering and hospitality industry and redirects it to be used elsewhere, with The King’s School in Gloucester being the first school in the country to adopt the new initiative.
The school intends to tackle the issue of food waste ‘head-on’ by reducing the excessive amount of edible food that gets wasted each year and educating students, staff and the wider community on what they can to do to lower their food waste.
David Morton, headmaster at The King’s School Gloucester, said: ‘King’s has an impressive reputation for one of the country’s oldest and most prestigious schools, however we also work very hard to prepare today’s pupils for the fast-changing world outside the school gates.
‘We are always looking for opportunities within the school to improve our environmental footprint, to be innovative and brave. From eliminating single use plastic, to planting more trees, to using electricity from sustainable sources and now to pioneering the Surplus to Purpose initiative to reduce food waste – all these small actions can add up to make a big impact.’
Schools and companies interested in following King’s lead and joining the Surplus to Purpose initiative are encouraged to sign up by emailing adam@surplus2purpose.com.
For more information, visit thekingsschool.co.uk.
