Chris King Photography - Food Waste in the UK

Food Is… – More than just a photographic project

Since September 2013 I have been exploring a personal project around the topic of food waste. The fact that food is being wasted has become big news recently, with some new statistic in the newspaper almost daily. The same is true of the measures that are being implemented to tackle the symptoms on a local level – such as diversion from landfill to biodigesters, where the food waste is converted into energy.

What doesn’t get enough coverage however are the solutions to reducing the amount of food that is wasted in the first place. I therefore decided to start my project by focusing on the solutions to reducing food waste production outside of the domestic environment – documenting the activities being carried out by organisations and initiatives in London, which are also being implemented elsewhere in the country.

The first organisation I made contact with was FoodCycle – a charitable organisation that gathers food from supermarkets and farmers’ markets that would otherwise have gone to waste, and with that food, producing nutritious, balanced meals for vulnerable members of the community.

Very early on I knew I wanted to do something other than build up a body of work over a year or two, to then hang 20-odd images on the wall of some gallery here in London – I wanted my work to feed into the campaign to reduce food waste. I therefore built a site to house my work – both as image galleries, and a photo diary – to ensure there is an ongoing dialogue from the outset; profiles of the organisations I document – to do what I can to help promote them and the great work they do; and facts and figures about food waste, as well as more in-depth articles written by people working within the industry.

I hope that with time the Food Is… site and project will become a resource for all those who visit, and I would also like to develop it as an education resource for schools at some point down the line.

Visit the Food Is… website, explore what’s there, and sign up to the newsletter so as you are kept informed of future additions to the photo diary, and of the fight to reduce food waste.