The International Campaign Feeding the 5000 in Brussels on April 1 -Slow Food Participates in Event Against Food Waste

On April 1, the global campaign against food waste, known as Feeding the 5000, is holding a public event in Brussels. Taking place from 12-4 pm at Marché Aux Herbes (Grasmarkt), the event aims to highlight the global food waste scandal, along with the available solutions, by preparing a delicious lunch entirely from fresh food that would otherwise have gone to waste. The lunch will be served to over 5000 people, free of charge. Several organizations (EU FUSIONS, 11.11.11, Oxfam, Slow Food, Slow Food Youth Network Brussels, Disco Soupe, Brussels Social Groceries Flanders, Velt, Green Up Film Festival, CRIOC, the Belgian Federation of Food Banks and KOMISIE), for whom food waste is also a key concern, will participate as event partners.

Slow Food and the Slow Food Youth Network Brussels will set up an exhibition called “When you shop, use your brain!” and the educational sensory activity “Discovering the origins of taste” to show how consuming food with all senses can enable people to better appreciate food and thus change their consumption habits and attitude toward food waste. Terra Madre cook Philippe Renoux from restaurant Orphyse Chaussette will be hosting a cooking show about how to avoid food waste. Furthermore, the organization Disco Soupe will organize a “Disco Salad” serving salads based on hundreds of kilos of surplus fruit and vegetables. These events against food waste showcase how much nutritious and tasty quality products are wasted on a daily basis simply due to the common misconception, both at the consumer and corporate level, that fruit and vegetables need to look cosmetically perfect and live up to standardized sizes and shapes.

The event on April 1 is a good opportunity to inform people about the dramatic amount of food waste that occurs every day around the world and urge the European institutions to take action: According to the FAO, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tons — gets lost or wasted. Meanwhile over 840 million people worldwide (12% of the world population) are undernourished. Given these facts, EU Food Sense, the European Parliament’s Cross-Party Sustainable Food Steering Group and Feeding the 5000 are organizing the conference: The Commission’s imminent food policy: Sustainability or standing still? on April 2 from 9:00-11:30 am in the European Parliament. The aim of conference is to get EU politicians on board and talk about the specific solutions that can be implemented, both at the EU level and in the EU member states. The event will be opened with a speech and Q&A from the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier De Schutter, followed by food waste campaigner Tristram Stuart and a panel of expert speakers, including European Commission representatives. If you wish to register for the event, please RSVP by 27 March to European Parliament Vice-President for Democracy and Human Rights, Edward McMillan-Scott: [email protected]

A press kit about the event will shortly be available for download: http://www.feeding5k.org

Find out more about the Feeding the 5000 campaign: http://feeding5k.org/

Find out more about Slow Food: http://localhost/slowfood/international/press-dossier

For further information, please contact:

The Slow Food International Press Office         Feeding the 5 K

Paola Nano, +39 329 8321285 [email protected]          Lauriane Giet, [email protected]

* Feeding the 5000, a campaign founded by food waste author Tristram Stuart, aims to empower and inspire the global community to enact positive solutions to the global issue of food waste. The campaign works with governments, businesses and civil society at the international level to catalyse change in social attitudes and innovative solutions necessary to tackle food waste at the global scale. Feeding the 5000 is also the name of the campaign’s flagship event where 5000 members of the public are given a delicious free lunch using only ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted. Held twice in Trafalgar Square (2009 and 2011), replica events have since been held internationally – including in Paris, Amsterdam and Dublin – and will be rolled out worldwide.

** Slow Food is a global grassroots organization that envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them. A non-profit member-supported association, Slow Food was founded in 1989 to counter the rise of fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and to encourage people to be aware about the food they eat, where it comes from and how it tastes. Slow Food involves millions of people dedicated to and passionate about good, clean and fair food. This includes chefs, youth, activists, farmers, fishers, experts and academics in over 150 countries; a network of around 100,000 Slow Food members linked to 1,500 local chapters worldwide (known as convivia), contributing through their membership fee, as well as the events and campaigns they organize; and 2,000 Terra Madre food communities who practice small-scale and sustainable production of quality food around the world.