Rethink Food is a local non-profit organisation that delivers educational programmes to school children and distributes surplus food. Rethink Food’s work has food security and sustainability at the forefront and focuses on the following four pillars: Availability of Food, Accessibility of Food, Utilisation of Food and Sustainability of Food.
The work undertaken by Rethink Food helps to remove hunger as a barrier to learning in schools. Each of the 32 schools across Leeds and Bradford that Rethink Food is partnered with receives seven crates of surplus food from supermarkets every week. They help the schools to create their own social enterprises to redistribute the food to those in their community.
Alongside the surplus food distribution, pupils are educated on food security, the impact that food has on the climate and are also empowered to grow and eat healthy foods. Rethink Food demonstrate innovative ways of growing food without soil via their growing towers. This method of growing increases yields by as much as 30% and triples the speed of growth, while using only 10% of the water and space.
As well as their work in schools, each week Rethink Food supports 18 community groups, and almost 200 families, with surplus food boxes through their Lifestyles Programme. Rethink Food are on a mission to deliver 1 million hours of education and to expand their programmes nationally.