Episode 5 The Big Food Rescue

The UK throws away more food than any other European country -

10 million tonnes a year.

That's enough to feed an estimated 145,000 people for life.

What absolutely shocked me was

why is all this waste being allowed to happen?

With millions of Brits struggling to put food on the table,

it's a food crisis that makes no sense.

But have these two men found a solution?

Every town, every city, every community in the country

can have an operation which brings surplus food

and people in need together.

Can they change the food habits of a nation?

And do it by focusing on the fresh food

that supermarkets and wholesalers are throwing away?

David Cairns and Robert Aitken are bringing a radical scheme to London

to crack down on the scandal of food waste,

whilst also helping those people most in need.

It is very exciting

because it's the first time we've ever actually been able to prove

that we can replicate this thing.

We've been following them as they've signed up volunteers...

-Hi, there. I'm Nick.

-Nice to meet you, Nick. I'm Anne.

..picked up mountains of food...

There's a lot of stuff here.

..and delivered it to charities

who would otherwise struggle to feed people.

This place - there's something so...magical about it.

Every time we get to that place, there we get a donation.

Now they have 17 food businesses on board

and dozens of London charities signed up.

We've got quite a lot to do. Take this one.

This is what we've got to do.

I've deliberately put in lots of cakes.

Really, we couldn't do the work we now do without Felix.

I'm always amazed when I fill this car up

to think that all of this would just be put in a landfill.

With projects like The Felix Project,

it literally gets to the people that need it.

Have they got carrots and stuff?

But with mountains of fresh food still waiting to be delivered...

There's not enough storage.

It's just not manageable for us to have this much.

..and dozens of charities across London desperate to receive it...

There's 52 families in this hostel,

so this is just a total of the amount of food

they probably need, you know?

The team's challenge now is to expand with a new depot.

It's 9.00am at The Felix Project HQ in West London.

David and Robert are off to investigate possible locations.

-See you later.

-See you later.

-All right, see you shortly.

It's very important that we find a new depot quickly

because we've set ourselves an ambitious expansion target.

Having proved that we can actually do this in London,

it's the logical next step that we will move on

and try and do it somewhere else in London,

because if it works here, it should work there.

They're starting their search in Tottenham, to the north of the city.

There's a sort of consensus around Tottenham, isn't there, really?

Yeah, my gut feel told me, having travelled around this area quite a lot,

this is an area in need.

Tottenham is in the borough of Haringey.

David and Robert anticipate

there'll be a need for the food bank's services.

My guess is there will be a lot of charities in and around.

But the new depot also needs to be well-placed logistically

and rich in potential food suppliers.

The key criterion are deprivation, is it an area of deprivation?

Two, what is the availability of supply?

Three, what are the logistics like,

in terms of access to major arterial routes.

From here onwards is sort of the area that we're talking about.

Their first stop is an industrial estate

just a stone's throw from the North Circular -

one of the capital's major ring roads.

Cyprofood.

Best Way Wholesale.

-See, this is...

-This is...

-This is the kind of place.

So far, the signs are looking good.

This is a real target area, this place.

Look, you can have all of your requirements in one place.

This is a find in itself.

One of the things about developing this

is you've got to find a whole load of different suppliers and stuff.

But this particular area seems to have the mixture that you require

all in one place.

The plan is to open five depots by the end of 2017.

It's a statement of the blindingly obvious, but London's a big city.

So you can't satisfy the demand from one depot.

So we're going to have to have depots north, south, east and west.

They may well have found the location for their second depot.

It's the area, we think, because it hits the three criterion.

Obviously, you know, we know that it's a very deprived area.

We've just found out that there's a huge supply

within a five-mile radius.

And on top of that, by looking around,

we've been able to see that there's so many industrial estates,

we must be able to find a unit here.

Their challenge now is to find a vacant lot.

The key to this approach of tackling food waste is redistributing

fresh food the supermarkets would otherwise throw away.

But the problem of food waste often begins before the food

even reaches the supermarket shelves.

It's not good enough to say that people have spent X months

producing vegetables and whatever else, for us to say,

"Well, that's fine. We'll throw them in the bin."

It's basically saying that we don't appreciate the effort

that people have made into producing this in the first place.

And that's wrong.

Charlie Dunn's family has been running this apple farm

in Kent for the last 200 years.

Our main customer is the supermarket.

So, the majority of our fruit will inevitably end up there.

A large proportion of the fruit they grow

is rejected by the supermarkets.

There could be a variety of reasons the supermarkets wouldn't

have the fruit, or it wouldn't make the supermarkets, let's say.

We could have, for example, a bit of this,

which could be some hail damage.

Also, this is a little bit sun scorched, just here.

Here, could be downgraded due to shape.

But despite the imperfections,

the fruit is still perfectly good to eat.

The irony is, it's a culinary apple, so, we peel the skin.

So, yes, they're perfectly fine. Or, in this instance, you cut this out.

In an effort to tackle this waste of perfectly good, edible fruit,

a group of volunteers has come together

to collect the surplus apples.

We have a project called the Gleaning Network,

which is what we are doing right now.

Basically, a huge amount of beautiful produce,

like this apple here, gets wasted on British farms every year.

And it's often for silly reasons, really,

like it's slightly too small, slightly too big,

wrong size or colour.

So, what we do is take volunteers out to farms and we say,

you know, this food, perfectly delicious, really lovely.

You know, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

And we get that to a good home.

An estimated 20-40% of UK fruit and vegetables are rejected

before they even reach the shops because they don't match

the supermarket's strict cosmetic standards.

Just think of them almost like eggs and then they won't bruise.

Projects like this allow them to be redistributed to charities

that feed the poor and needy.

Today, we're going to be giving a lot to FairShare.

They're one of the largest food redistribution charities in the UK.

They parcel those out to hundreds of homeless hostels,

women's refuges, drug rehabilitation and other projects

dealing with food poverty and isolation.

They pick very easily right now.

They, literally, are just in the palm of your hand.

Click and lift.

With 8.4 million people in the UK

struggling to put food on the table,

community projects like this can be extremely powerful.

This could never make it into a supermarket.

It's objectionable, apparently, on the aesthetic grounds.

It's ugly.

It's not the kind of thing that consumers want to buy,

except that, actually, it's a completely, perfectly fine apple.

Yeah. Beautiful.

I think, we've almost been groomed into the idea

that if it looks shiny and beautiful, it must be better.

Whereas, with naturally growing things, that's not necessarily true.

-Can you see, they've got marks.

-Yeah, but they are good to eat.

It's really, really heart-breaking that

so much good food is going to waste

and there are plenty of people who've got nothing to eat

and I felt that, as a citizen,

it's my responsibility, you know, to do something for the society

and, yeah, that's why we are here today.

That's it! Aha! Fruit chain. How about the apple-gangers,

instead of the doppelgangers?

Once people understand that, in their community, there is

this level of food waste, I think, it does start to pull

disparate groups together

to actually try and do something about it.

Working, as a community, it gives you a presence.

One or two individuals actually talking about something

is nowhere near as powerful as a group of 200 or 300 people

talking about the same thing.

Raising awareness of food waste

and encouraging people to do something about it

are two of David and Robin's main priorities.

They're hoping their model will find some followers elsewhere in the UK.

Everywhere in the country wastes food.

There's always surplus food at supermarkets.

There are always charities in need.

There are always people looking for volunteering opportunities.

I see no reason at all why every town, city,

community in the country shouldn't have one of these.

One man who's been particularly inspired by David and Robin's

model, is Luton-based Mohammed Ali.

I was just having dinner one night with my family and I was

looking at my children and I was thinking to myself,

you boys are so lucky that every night you are getting

a hot meal, whereas, in Luton and nationwide, there's families,

people who aren't as fortunate.

Ali now wants to set up his very own food waste charity

in his hometown of Luton.

So far, Ali's got a garage.

At the moment, it looks pretty messy but it's going to be

completely empty, completely tidy.

A fridge for storing food, a car, and himself.

It's a one-man band at the moment but that doesn't put me off at all.

You usually find it's one person on his or her own at the beginning.

Hi, it's Ali calling, regarding your food project, based in Luton.

I just wanted to confirm whether it's OK to pick up the food

from yourselves.

With no prior experience of a project like this,

Ali is having to learn everything as he goes along.

Feeling a bit nervous and a bit anxious. I don't know why.

Maybe it's because I'm just, sort of, starting up and, you know,

I'm coming into contact with some of my suppliers for the first time.

With no volunteers on board yet, or vans to deliver the food,

he's decided to start small by targeting local high street shops.

Hiya. I'm Ali.

-We spoke before, regarding the food to be donated to my project.

-Sure.

Thank you.

-There you go.

-OK. Thank you very much.

So that's bread, fruit, and some packaged stuff there. OK. OK.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Yeah, it's quite exciting to be picking it up for the first time

and, you know, there's such a variety there.

But picking up the food is one thing,

finding charities to deliver it to is quite another.

I don't have any concrete recipients in place at the moment.

I'm looking at, potentially, just walking into a church

and asking them, see if they're willing to take the food.

As the food is perishable, Ali needs to deliver it,

either today or tomorrow to make sure it's still fit for consumption.

But, without forward planning, this isn't as easy as it seems.

Looks like it's shut.

No, it's shut. So, maybe we can try a few.

There's another one down the road, on this same road.

Just a bit further along. There's a church here.

If it's open, I'll, obviously,

discuss what the project is about.

I think it's closed, to be honest with you.

It's not going well so far but Ali's not giving up.

Hi. Good afternoon. My name's Ali. I'm just phoning,

just wanted to find out if you accept food donations.

You do.

I just spoke to a really nice lady on the phone.

Explained what I'm doing, what my project is all about.

She said she's more than happy to accept food.

Eureka! Now, all that remains is to find the charity.

I've no idea where this place is. Hopefully, it's down here somewhere.

There's Keech Hospice over here.

Now, I feel a bit bad asking one charity organisation

about where another one is.

So, what I'll do is, if I can just leave the food here,

I'll just quickly pop in there.

OK. So, it's right down the other end.

Go out of the door, turn right, keep walking right,

right down under the flyover.

This just gets better and better.

It's actually back in that direction.

Eventually, after another five minutes of walking,

Ali finally finds the charity.

Ah. Here we go. Yeah. Glad I'm here.

This charity provides food, clothing,

and medical care to homeless people

and, although its staff don't want to appear on camera,

they do initially accept Ali's food.

I explained what I'm doing,

what project I'm looking to set up in Luton.

They saw the food that I was donating

and they were more than happy.

But they don't agree to receive food on a regular basis,

so Ali's challenge now is to find some charities who are willing

to sign up for the long haul.

The barrier that I'm facing,

a lot of organisations can't believe that it's actually a service

which I'm willing to provide free of charge,

because I'm picking up food, which is saving costs for the

supplier and then I'm donating it to the charity or the

organisation who, they don't have to pick it up from anywhere.

So, it's a win-win situation for all,

but I suppose that's the challenge that I'm facing at the moment.

Building up a reputation amongst charities and suppliers

has taken our food waste pioneers time and effort.

Now that reputation is established,

the requests from charities are flooding in.

This is why the plan to expand is becoming ever more urgent.

We have a business plan that says that we are going to open

five depots by the end of 2017.

So, obviously, the sooner we can get on to this, the better.

Getting fresh produce to charities that feed people obviously helps

prevent malnutrition, but it also has an important social function.

I think one of the saddest things about poverty is the way that

it marginalises people.

So, people feel that they are not wanted by society,

they're not really part of society.

And the organisations which provide meals for them,

these are organisations which stretched out a hand and say,

"Actually, we haven't forgotten about you.

"You're very welcome to come here and we will give you something to

"eat and we will have a bit of fun together and

"a bit of society together," you know.

One of the nearest additions to the London charities fold is the

Community Of Sant'Egido in High Street Kensington.

They're an Italian charity,

who have a group here in London and

they organise meals for

the elderly once a month.

In the beginning, it was just like a tea and biscuit, but then later,

many people started to come in, so then we started to do a dinner.

It's like a dinner in the afternoon.

The role of an organisation like the Felix Project or

the Oxford Food Bank is to actually say to those organisations,

"Yes, you're not forgotten either.

"The good work that you do is recognised by us."

-Shall we see what we've got?

-Yes, let's do it.

"What's more, we will give you free food, so you can do it better."

-Do you need any of the pumpkins?

-We absolutely need pumpkins.

Lovely! Excellent. Do you need bananas?

We've got about three different...

Yeah, we always do a bit of a desert, so bananas would be perfect.

-Would you use potatoes?

-Maybe one, yes.

-OK, are you sure you can't use two?

-Thank you.

There's not very many mushrooms, but are very welcome to have them.

I brought some different types of tea.

And this is all tomatoes and passata.

Thank you very, very much.

The food that the London charity

has saved from going into landfill will be used by the

volunteers here to make a meal for up to 70 people.

The Felix Project, it's helped a lot.

They get the most of the food.

If they don't give this food for us, we have to buy it.

The money we save from here, we get sandwiches and crisps that we make

bags every Saturday and go into the street to see people.

Once the food comes in, it's down to the team to use their Italian

flair to create a meal from it.

Today, we have a vegetable soup.

And then the second course, we have a pasta that's called amatriciana.

The sauce is here. It's amatriciana, so basically,

with pancetta and tomato sauce.

HE SPEAKS ITALIAN

And then we have pancakes we're filling with chicken.

Imagine if you have to buy this.

It would be very difficult for us to afford all the courses of the food.

But then if they give to us, it's going to be fine,

because we don't need to spend money on this thing,

we can spend money for the other things.

Then pasta sauce. The soup should be...

Down to serve. So we have like...

-35 minutes.

-Just need to taste it.

Si, si.

At 4.15pm, the guests start to arrive and the team

put the finishing touches to their dishes.

Here we need to use the creativity, yes.

Because the mushrooms, it's not enough, but we get a box from

the Felix Project so then we decided to put on the top to be nice.

The guests who come include a mixture of young homeless people and

elderly people suffering from isolation and loneliness.

My favourite preoccupation, eating food.

One of my favourite hobbies.

We do get a variety of guests.

Both young and older generations and it's really great to be able

to see everyone together, you know, at the same table.

It's the best, like mother used to do.

What we tend to do as well is sit with our friends and ask them some

questions, just how is their day - "How are you?"

Everyone is feeling welcome here and I think the atmosphere

and the cooks and everybody makes it special.

At the end of the day, each guest is also given a packed lunch made with

surplus food.

The guests take one of these doggy bags, because it's still fresh.

So they take these home and for the other day.

That's good.

Coming here and seeing that food is put to good cause is just

a wonderful thing. For a lot of people coming in here,

this must be a lifeblood.

You can see their whole tonic is this thing.

I'm really, really glad that we can do what we do together with

the Felix Project.

The most satisfaction, it's how the people are happy.

If you ask anything, all the time they are very happy to be here.

Using fresh waste food from supermarkets to feed the poor and

the marginalised in society is what the projects in London and

Oxford are all about.

But even David and Robin could not have foreseen the sheer scale

of demand for their services in the capital.

With the cutbacks in funding and stuff like that, charities have

been forced to look outside at alternative ways of doing things.

How many charities would we plan to deliver to in London?

Well, you could say, "OK, we're opening five depots

"and we aim to get to the same level as Oxford."

So, that would be 400 charities.

But to deliver food to 400 charities, they are not only

going to need more depots, they're also going to need more staff.

At the HQ in west London, a new recruit has just joined the team.

It must be the season for avocados, tomatoes and mushrooms.

Jan is an ex-police officer, who believes passionately in

reducing fresh food waste.

I saw an advert for the Felix Project in the Metro.

And it was love at first sight.

I honestly believe it is criminal to waste food.

Half the world is starving. It's probably even more than that

and I just think it's criminal to throw food away.

Jan was the third person we hired and she was in the police for

a long time. She was in the Met.

The great thing about that is that someone who's worked in the

police, you know, I think you develop life skills.

Is there already some spaghetti there?

But it is a people business. At every stage of the operation,

it's people that you're dealing with and whether it's on the

charity or the supplier ends, you've got to have good social skills.

Jan has only been in the job for two days, but she's wasted

no time in getting stuck in.

-They can't go this afternoon?

-It's really funny, isn't it?

All this food is great, that's what we do,

but it almost becomes a problem with getting rid of it.

It's making sure that your input matches your output,

because we've actually had a lot of stuff come in,

but today I've sourced four new charities and organised when

we're going to start delivering to them.

When the London Project opens its second depot,

the plan is for either Jan, Anne or Sophie to manage it.

First of all, the team need to find a suitable empty warehouse.

Unfortunately, there was nothing available in the business park

David and Robin visited in Tottenham.

David is off to Leyton in east London to see if he can find

a suitable space there.

The requirements are always demographics,

in terms of deprivation, then road links, then suppliers and depots.

That will decide where the depot goes.

Leyton is in London's sixth most deprived borough

and close to the busy North Circular road.

This is within the target area.

We've had a couple of details sent through to us,

for properties in this area.

So, I thought we may as well come along and have a look around

to see what might be available.

The second depot has to be large enough to house an office, at

least two chillers and three vans.

3,000-4,000 square feet.

That one, looking inside, that might just be just about the right idea.

You know, imagine it just purely empty,

because that's literally all you're going to get is an office

space on the side and then you're going to have an open warehouse.

And you know, by the time we put a couple of chillers into it

and then a couple of our trucks, it fills up very quick.

But there are also lessons to be learned from the first depot

in Park Royal in London.

That might be too big for us, but on the other hand,

we now realise that Park Royal is actually too small,

because of the volume of stuff that we're beginning to get through.

So, if for example, this place took off just as quickly as Park Royal,

maybe it might be better to get a bigger place.

This area ticks all the boxes for the level of needs in the community.

Proximity to major roads and an abundance of local suppliers.

That's a very good afternoon's work.

I've found several properties around here that might be available.

I just need to get a hold of the agents

and see if we can get a viewing for them.

So, I think it's time for a beer. I'm off.

Expanding the charity across London is an ambitious goal,

but David and Robin are hoping that the model will eventually be

replicated across the whole of the UK.

I would like to think that if we can get enough awareness of what

we do, that people will want to do it themselves. In many respects.

the model that we're using is a self-help model.

I mean, all of the things that you need to make it work are there.

Just somebody needs to actually make it work.

And that's just what Muhammad Ali is trying to do in Luton.

However, he's not finding it easy to get off the ground.

He's come to get some tips from the Oxford Food Bank.

-Nice to meet you.

-Come in. Have a look around.

-Yeah, sure.

This original enterprise began seven years ago.

They now have 60 charities in Oxford

they regularly deliver food to

and another 20 who pick up food from them.

Without the Oxford Food Bank, we couldn't afford to buy

fresh vegetables, fruits, we couldn't afford to do it.

The food bank gives us cheese, dairy products

that we don't normally have the money for.

Not having that donation once a week would be hard,

because we do utilise the food really well.

Thank you.

Ali is keen for any advice the staff can give him.

I noticed when it first started out, it was just sort of like a garage

-with a fridge and using your own cars.

-Yeah.

I think I'm probably at that stage.

What would be the first step that you would recommend me to take

to try and get a project like this on its feet?

You need to know who your suppliers are likely to be

and the charities are likely to be,

but until you get some sort of funding and community support,

you're not really going to be able to take that first step of actually

getting something moving.

What about in terms of establishing that initial contact?

Someone like me to go to Sainsbury's and say,

"Oh, would you donate food to me?"

I'm not sure how receptive they would be in the early stages.

They're all very keen to work with charities now, because to

them it is a problem, they had to pay to get rid of this food surplus.

They know it's perfectly good to eat, it just can't be sold on.

-So, you are actually doing them a favour in a way?

-Yes.

Perhaps if we want to go into the office

-and have a chat about the procedures and things.

-Yes.

That would be useful I think.

We'd be only too happy to let anybody copy what we do.

But actually, you know, it's so simple in essence that all

you need to do is to listen to the next sentence.

Which is, we find suppliers of food who have surplus food, we take it,

we gather it, we source it, and we give it to charity.

That's the whole thing in a nutshell.

It looks challenging, but you know, what isn't challenging in life?

And seeing the work that they are doing for the local community,

not just in terms of reducing waste,

but also reducing poverty in effect - it's been a real eye-opener.

Taking all that back with me to Luton,

I'm quite eager and motivated to get up and running.

All these projects start with one or two individuals, as ours did.

It can be something as simple as one man and

a van and five charities and one supplier.

No matter what you do with that,

it's an improvement on the current situation.

David and Robin's eventual plan is to change the food habits of a nation.

With supermarkets rejecting 20% to 40% of UK fruit and vegetables,

they believe we should all be holding the supermarkets to account.

What we can all do, aside from making sure that we don't

waste food in our own fridge, we can all bring pressure to bear on

politicians and on the food industry itself.

You can make a bit of a nuisance of yourself

at the local supermarket perhaps.

Say to the manager, "I don't like the fact you're wasting food.

"What are you going to do about it?"

One supermarket that is attempting to address

the problem of food waste is Tesco,

which has teamed up with some of its suppliers to try

and ensure that all the food they produce actually gets used.

-Hi, John. How you doing?

-I'm all right, George.

-How you doing?

-Yeah, good, thank you.

Branston in Lincolnshire is the food giant's main potato supplier.

They've been working with the supermarket to find ways of

ensuring that as many potatoes as possible make it onto the shelves.

Potato production can be quite variable.

You have an element that is quite open to what the weather is,

what the weather is doing and the types of varieties that you

grow or any new varieties that you introduce.

So, it's really important that we protect quality for customers

and give customers what they want, but we also have a number of

different things that we can do with stuff that isn't quite good enough.

The factory has found a way of grading potatoes so that even

the less aesthetically pleasing ones make it into the food chain.

So, we've got Piper going through now,

Maris Piper going through, and they'll go into the packing lines.

They go into a variety of different packs -

starting from our premium packs and our large baking packs,

all the way through down to our smaller size and our wonky veg size.

Misshapen potatoes now go into the wonky veg range.

While any spuds with skin defects are sent the prepared factory,

where they're pealed and turned into mashed potato, chips or wedges.

All this basically is what they can't use at fresh.

They've used that, they've utilised the crop as much as possible,

they've sized it and graded it to their specifications and then

because we peel it, we have a lot more scope.

There's scurf, that the fresh factory can't use, because

obviously, the visual aspect of it for their product is nothing to us.

It takes about 30 seconds to whizz it through the line

and make it perfect.

Beneath the skin, these imperfect potatoes are just as good

as the unblemished ones.

Now instead of heading to landfill,

they end up on the supermarket shelves.

At least 270,000 tonnes of surplus food from the UK food and drink

industry could be given to people who need it each year.

In London, David and Robin are still only delivering to

a fraction of the charities that help feed people.

How many charities would we plan to deliver to in London?

Well, that's a difficult one,

because we're only just finding out the density of charities.

They need to find another depot to expand their operation.

So, while David continues to search in Leyton, Robin and fellow

trustee Michael have come to take a look at nearby Walthamstow.

It's quite an industrial area, isn't it?

There's lots of premises up there. And what we need to look at is being

able to supply a sufficient number of charities that can take the food.

I don't think there'll be any problem finding charities

in this area. The more important thing at the moment

is to lay our hands on some warehouses.

It's apparent that this area could benefit from the food bank services.

But they also need to ensure that there are sufficient food

suppliers around and good road access for the vehicles.

It's important to know that we can keep to a minimum the distance

that we have to move stuff.

Ideally we should be working out routes

so that we don't have to go back to the depot at all.

We're going to be picking stuff up

and dropping it off directly at the charities that it's going to.

Yeah, yeah.

This area looks promising from the outside.

-Which one is it? 23?

-I think it's this one over here.

But until they actually get inside,

they won't be able to tell whether it's suitable for their needs.

-Hi. How are you doing?

-Hi, hi.

-I'm Nick.

-Michael, hi.

Robin. How do you do, Nick?

-What's the square footage here?

-That's the details there.

You've got just over 1,900 square feet.

1,900, does that include the mezzanine?

-That includes the mezzanine as well, yeah.

-Right.

With vans constantly coming in and out, the depot must have

sufficient headroom, so the mezzanine could be a problem.

Squeezing in a mezzanine to create extra square feet doesn't

really work for us.

The trouble is we use these high-roof vans.

They also need sufficient space to store the fresh food.

You know, we'd be struggling just to get any of the...

one of the chillers in, for a start.

You wouldn't get a chiller here.

I imagine the ceiling's too low.

There's no chance of getting two adjacent units, possibly?

It's unlikely.

And you don't have anything else in the area that would be bigger?

There's a few things, options we could send across.

Could you do that? OK.

It's not the result they were hoping for.

It's become increasingly clear

that expanding the project across London

is going to pose some huge challenges.

What's the market like, at the moment?

I mean, there doesn't seem to be that much around.

No, there's a lot of units being demolished and redeveloped,

cos it's more valuable as residential property.

So we're finding that these units

are very few and far between at the moment.

That explains quite a lot, actually.

Cos, you know,

it's surprisingly difficult to find anything at all, really.

With almost 40 charities now on their books,

and more signing up every week,

it's vital to get more space.

OK, well...

Probably the right area, but, you know, wrong place.

So we just have to keep on looking.

Yeah, I agree, actually.

The hunt will continue for a second depot, then a third,

and a fourth, and a fifth.

We want to build on the momentum we have already.

We've attracted quite a lot of public attention so far,

but we need to keep that going.

We need to grab people's enthusiasm and say,

"Look, this is something which is going to happen, it's happening now,

"and it's going to be bigger. And this is what we're about."

At present, food waste amounting to 370 million meals a year

is not being distributed to the people who need it.

So replicating this simple solution to tackling food waste is important.

What I always say to people is, "You can do this yourself."

It's going to take a lot of hard work, that's inescapable.

But if you put the work in, you know,

you can build something really worthwhile.

Back in Luton,

one-man-band Muhammad Ali is trying the same approach.

But he's been struggling to get charities to take him seriously.

They keep on saying, "Oh, that's too good to be true,"

the fact that I'm just going to be delivering the food off to them,

free of charge.

It's been challenging.

He's been determined not to get downhearted.

You know, it's like anything.

You start up a business, you're going to get setbacks,

and I've expected it.

But I know I'm doing it for a good cause,

so I've got my good reasons to do it,

and, yeah, I'm looking forward to it.

Today, he's visiting a new supplier that's promised

to pass on its surplus food.

They've kindly agreed to donate some fresh fruit and vegetables,

and hopefully, I'll get a good quantity.

You know, I don't know what to expect.

I won't feel relieved until I've picked it up and then dropped it,

and then it'll finally start to sink in that, you know,

this is taking off.

-OK. You all right? So, this is for me, yeah?

-Yes.

-OK.

OK, thank you very much. OK, I'll speak to you soon. OK, thanks a lot.

Take care.

This is quite a good supply.

We've got a mix of pears, oranges, bananas, apples...

So it's a whole mix, there. And I'm quite pleased.

And obviously, this can now go on to benefit people who need it most.

The supplier has also agreed

to make these pick-ups a regular arrangement.

This particular supplier's like,

"Yeah, I've got loads of fruit and vegetables which I can give you on a regular basis."

The key is to maintaining these relationships,

not to let them down, if I've, you know,

agreed a pick-up date, to go and pick it up.

This time, Ali has also done his homework with regard to charities.

He's delivering the food to a day centre which provides

hot cooked meals and shelter for the homeless in Bedford.

Today, I'm going to be delivering a decent amount of fruit

to this organisation.

And they're going to provide that

to the vulnerable people who use their services.

And that's the most satisfying part, you know,

that's what it's all about.

-Hi.

-Hi.

-It's Muhammad, from the Helping Hunger Foundation.

All right, Ali?

So, this has been kindly donated by suppliers.

You've got bananas, pears, apples...

If you look at that, that is perfectly fine in many respects.

It's just visibly blemished.

More than happy to accept that. These look great.

-I mean, there's absolutely nothing wrong with those.

-Yeah.

And to think that this would normally be thrown away.

Ali's plan now is to establish an ongoing relationship with the day centre.

Please take a seat.

If all goes well, it could become his first regular customer.

You know, I'm trying to establish my name, my brand, my whole project,

and I've had rejections, I've had, you know, maybes, ifs and buts.

I was a maybe when you phoned me up.

I said, "Yeah, we're really interested,

"but we need to talk about things."

Chief Executive Ryan's main concern

is the freshness of the food that Ali is delivering.

I'm sure you're aware of this, but I'll just run through it.

We are a food provider.

We actually cook food in house here

that we then provide to the individuals that attend our service.

So we need to ensure we know where our food comes from,

because once we've received food, we're accepting it as good.

What I'm trying to do, is I'm trying to pick up the food

and deliver it straightaway.

You know, I'm very happy to assist you establish yourself,

because, you know, A, it's going to benefit us...

But also, it's going to benefit other people.

There are three prime things you need for survival,

above all else.

And that is food, water, and shelter.

-Very nice to meet you.

-Pleasure to meet you.

-I look forward to working with you.

-See you later.

-Take care.

What Ali is doing for us

is going to enable us to help provide that food

to people that otherwise probably wouldn't eat.

I feel really excited, cos it's sort of my first organisation,

if you like, that has put in...you know concrete plans to work with me.

And, you know, all the hard work, all the background work,

has paid off.

The food that I've dropped off today is going to be literally served up

to vulnerable people tomorrow morning.

And it's nice to know that it's going to make a difference.

It's inspiring.

But that's what it takes.

It takes individuals with guts to try and make a difference.

And people like Ali are the start of, hopefully,

something bigger and better.

Ali is only at the start of his waste food adventure,

but if he follows David and Robin's example,

the sky's the limit.

It's been six months now since the London charity

first opened its doors, and the rate of expansion has been phenomenal.

Hi, the Felix Project.

Our volunteer numbers have gone up by...

like, five times what they were.

The supply is just insane now,

the amount of food we're getting in.

And we've just started to be able to deliver more charities as well.

So it's really good.

-Did you go to Westfield?

-Yes.

-Yeah, all good?

-Get lots of stuff?

When you see the volume of food,

the cold room's going to be twice the size.

You know, so that's coming tomorrow, new cold room.

The whole of the warehouse is going to be moved around.

We're going to have shelves up to accommodate

the extra food that we're going to get.

I don't talk about anything else

because it is so overwhelming and exciting and interesting

and exhausting.

And today is a very important day, as the charity's founder,

Justin Byam Shaw, is paying the team a special visit.

Well, I'm just having a quick sweep up

so it looks good for when Justin and Michael come.

Justin set up the London charity in memory of his son Felix,

who died of meningitis at the age of 14.

I know that, from speaking to Justin,

Felix was a really empathetic young man,

and had a real issue with inequality

and people not being able to feed themselves, and...

Justin and his wife Jane wanted to set up this up

as sort of his legacy.

And, yeah, it's a pretty amazing thing to do.

Today is an opportunity for Justin to meet the full team,

and take stock of how far the charity's come.

You've not actually met Justin before, have you?

No. No, no, we kind of missed each other.

I think we just want this place to be a success, and, you know,

it's quite difficult to measure the success. Especially when...

you know, we are here all the time.

I'd love to know that he's happy with what we're doing,

cos we are all working really, really hard,

and, you know, it's such a good project.

-Hi.

-Hello.

Who have you collected from today?

Been to Marks & Spencer's, Waitrose,

Costco, which is a regular daily...

Sainsbury's in Chiswick.

The fridge is pretty bare today, as of this point, which is good.

Good. We managed to get everything out.

Justin has been monitoring the London project right from the start,

and now wants to let the team know what they've achieved.

Great to meet you. What a change from last week, even.

What's been achieved in the last six months, I think, is fantastic.

So I'm going to give you some numbers about where we are.

In March, we had no volunteers,

one person, Anne, one van,

and she did 18 collections from three suppliers.

So scroll forward six months to October,

and we have 114 volunteers,

there was 127 collections we did in October, from 17 stores.

Already this week, we've got five new suppliers,

so that 17 goes up to 22.

We're about to hit 40 charities.

We just had four in March.

Anne tells me that this equates to 2,000 people

that we're feeding every week.

And my guess is

that we'll be at three times that in six months' time.

It's an extraordinary first chapter for a new charity,

and a tribute to the sheer hard work of everyone involved.

Sometimes I think, when you're here,

and you're just stuck in the sort of craziness of it all,

it's really hard to take a step back and realise what you're doing.

And when I go home, sometimes, I think,

"Oh, actually, what we're doing is pretty amazing."

I'm really proud to work for such a good organisation,

and it's every bit as good and fun

and worthwhile as I knew it would be.

We've now got a database of hundreds of volunteers

that want to come in and help.

We've got a database of charities,

and now, it's just a case of all systems go. It is really nice,

it's a really amazing feeling.

In six months, this London charity has grown from a team of one...

Good afternoon, Felix Project!

..to a team of 117.

So, yeah, we're absolutely at a full rota this week.

Between them, they've picked up 50 to 60 tonnes of food...

Oh, my goodness me.

That's rather a lot, isn't it?

..delivered it to almost 40 charities...

-Fantastic work.

-Thank you!

-Brilliant.

-See you.

-Yeah.

..and helped to feed 2,000 people every week.

It's life-saving for me.

If it wasn't for this place, I don't know how I could manage.

It's amazing, what you can do with that food,

and it's a shame to throw it away.

David and Robin hope that the model will be copied nationwide...

I'd love to see our model embedded

in the whole food process across the country.

..and change the way we produce,

sell, buy, eat and dispose of fresh food.

It's a sin to waste food when people are in need.

When the penny drops and people see that something can be done

by bringing those two things together,

by collecting the food, giving it to people in need,

those are two things which any decent society,

any decent community, will want to do.