It’s not just the concept behind Britain’s first “waste supermarket” that’s impressive, it’s also the project’s sheer scale. Run by food-waste-busting nonprofit the Real Junk Food Project, this pay-what-you-can store housed in a Leeds warehouse connects local shoppers with food donated by supermarkets, restaurants, and wholesalers that would otherwise end up in the trash. Set up this summer, the store is already channeling a remarkable volume of otherwise wasted resources to people who need them, according to co-founder Adam Smith.
“One wholesale supplier alone recently delivered 11.3 tons of noodles to us,” he says. “It came in on twenty piled-up pallets. We're intercepting between two and ten tons of food a day at the moment just in Leeds—and that's with links to only half the city's supermarkets.”
