News

Concern about the amount of food left by suppliers exhibiting at LACA’s Main Event has prompted action by a small team to make sure that this is no longer simply thrown away but used to help supply a food bank and provide ingredients for a charity to prepare meals for those in need.

A couple of the driving forces behind the project are Cathy Amos, head of marketing at Brakes, and Roger Kellow, former Government account manager with Hobart and a LACA West Midlands regional committee member.

They have helped similar initiatives get under way at conference events organised by the National Association of Care Catering, The University Caterers Organisation and ASSIST FM.

At the Main Event they liaise with LACA South West regional chair Lynda Mitchell to arrange for all unwanted, in-date, surplus food to be collected from exhibitors as they pack up.

The next link in the chain of distribution is the Gainsborough-based charity and social enterprise Eudaimonia, and its chairman Steve Ralf.

It arranges vehicles to collect the food, which is ultimately used to deliver a range of community-based social eating opportunities across Lincolnshire.

Lynda supports the effort and in fact takes some of the surplus for a holiday club in Devon that she runs during the summer months.

Amos said: “It’s exhausting at the end of a conference to start coordinating and moving boxes and boxes of food but incredibly rewarding knowing how many people will benefit from the generosity of food suppliers at these events.”