Real junk food: Bristol cafe serves up food saved from supermarket rubbish bins

A non-for-profit cafe wants to raise awareness about the "crazy" amount of food waste in Britain. A lunchtime snack made out of ingredients saved from a skip may not sound very appetising, but a Bristol cafe is proving the opposite.

            The menu is certainly eclectic, ranging from Orkney crab and king prawn salad to spicy baked beans on toast. There was a bread and butter pudding for desert – or a lighter fruit smoothie. “But tomorrow it will be all change again,” said chef Dylan Rakhra. “We get different foods in every day, loads of stuff – bagels, lobster, lettuce. “It’s really fun. You look at what you’ve got, you make up meals and serve them. People seem to be loving it.”

            Skipchen serves up food past its sell-by date and dumped in supermarket and restaurant bins.  A team of volunteers go out every night searching through skips for any food waste that can be turned into a meal.

            Sam Joseph, 24, co-director of The Real Junk Food Project (TRJFP), which runs Skipchen, said he hoped to raise awareness about food waste in Britain.  "We take food that would otherwise go to waste," he explained. "The way we do it when we go 'skipping' is we do it as soon as they throw the food away. We see them do it and get the food out and into a refrigerator straight away. I am really conscious of food safety and food hygiene.”

            The café also receives donations from farms, local businesses and families, while it has also formed a partnership with restaurant chain Nandos to supply any surplus chicken.

            Skipchen, which asks it customers to "pay-as-they-feel", opened this month and is already proving popular with Bristol locals. "We have a real mix of people coming to the cafe and they sit on two long tables, so you could have a businessman sitting next to someone who is homeless at lunchtime,” Mr Joseph added.

            As closing time approached Skipchen gave away food, urging passersby to take away loaves of bread. Nothing was discarded. “We never waste anything,” said Joseph. An estimated 15 million tonnes of food is wasted in the UK each year, at a cost of £5bn, according to a recent House of Lords EU Committee report.

Question 1 (2 points) Indicate whether the following statements are true or false and write down which part of the text justifies your answer.

a. The café wants to make money to help people in need.

b. The food they offer is very varied.

c. They really care about the food they collect.

d. The menu has a set price.

Question 2 (2 points) Answer the following questions in your own words.

a. How does the restaurant get the food to prepare the menus?

b. Why is the menu different every day?

Question 3 (1.5 points) Find words or phrases in the text that correspond in meaning to the words and definitions given.

a. to show (par.1)                      b.  to vary (par.2)t                                  c. o throw out (par.3)

d. contrarily (par.4)                    e. excess (par.5)

Question 4 (1.5 points) Complete the following sentences without changing the meaning.

a. “ You look at what you’ve got, you make up meals and serve them”, they said

            They said...

b.  They have also formed a partnership with restaurant chain Nandos.

            A partnership...

c. He opened the restaurant because he wanted to raise awareness about food waste.

            If he didn't...

Question 5 (3 points) Write a short essay (120-150 words) on the following topic:

Do you think it is essential to eat all sorts of food to be healthy?