The Big Feed project brings people together over food, by providing a safe, welcoming space at our community cafés. People can enjoy a hearty meal whilst meeting and spending time with others in their community. The cafés offer free meals, and welcome optional contributions such as donating time, money, or skills. In this way, money is no barrier to having a nutritious warm meal, and people can also develop their skills- from cooking, to serving and cleaning. By having community cafés in areas of need, we are able to combine the fight against food waste, food poverty and social isolation- all at once!
Community Cafés Timetable
Our Big Feed Community Cafés provide tasty meals made from locally sourced surplus food that would otherwise end up in landfill. These nutritious meals are FREE to all so come along, share and do your bit to reduce waste and save the planet.
We also welcome optional contributions which include donating time, money or skill-sharing.
Big Feed events
The Big Feed Project is happy to provide delicious meals for events in the community, made from surplus food that would otherwise go to waste. You can find out more and request food for an event by emailing [email protected] or clicking here.
Recipes
Photos of the food from the Community Cook Along
We were pleased to run Community Cook Alongs at the Ladywood Share Shack at the start of 2024. You can find all the recipes that Bethan made here:
Previously, thanks to Food for Life and Incredible Surplus the Big Feed Project was able to offer free recipe kits to collect from our community cafés, you can find the recipes below:
Shepherdess Pie recipe
Caribbean Soup recipe
Dhal, chapati and chickpea curry recipes
Vegetarian Bean Chilli recipe
How you can help
Visit our volunteering page, or email [email protected] to find out our current opportunities and how you can get involved
Visit a café
Enjoying a hearty meal in one of our community cafés helps reduce the amount of food that would otherwise go to landfill – doing your bit for the planet
Donate your surplus food
We would love to hear from you if you are a business with surplus food about to reach or that has reached its best before date, or you have a glut of home grown veg you don’t want to go to waste. Our experienced team of creative cooks will be able to make it into something delicious to feed the community. If you have surplus food to donate, please email: [email protected] – we would love to work with you!
Facebook live cook-alongs
We’ve hosted facebook live cook-alongs to show you how to create a delicious, nutritious meal from scratch. The videos are designed so you can follow along with us, and create a yummy meal for your tea. If you want to watch any of them back at a time that suits you, you can find a playlist of the recorded videos here – perfect for when you need some cooking inspiration.
Food Waste Action Week
Did you know?
A staggering 4.5 million tonnes of edible food is thrown away each year by UK households- the equivalent of 8 meals a week. 70% of this is food we could have eaten.
Every year the average UK family throws away £730 worth of edible food.
70% of all food wasted in the UK is wasted by citizens in their own homes.
What can we do about it?
We can all help to reduce food waste, helping the environment and saving us money in the process. By storing food correctly, planning ahead, using food efficiently so less goes to waste- there’s lots that can be done. Find information, tips and resources on reducing food waste below. Share with others and see how much you can save!
Get in touch
If you would like to find out more about the Big Feed Project, or would like more info about our Community Cafés, volunteering opportunities, or how your organisation could work with us, please email: [email protected]