Ex-Lancaster Uni student’s food waste scheme backs King’s fight against poverty

The King marked his 75th birthday this week with the launch of the new initiative, which aims to reduce food waste and help people most at risk of food poverty in the UK.

Wonky and surplus food supplier Earth & Wheat has joined the Coronation Food Project’s cause and donated 2,894 ‘meals’ to FareShare – the UK’s largest charity fighting hunger and food waste - that saves good food from

going to waste by redistributing it to frontline charities.

Earth & Wheat was founded by former Lancaster University student James Eid and he says it is ‘absolutely crazy’ that millions of tonnes of food is wasted in the UK every year when there are millions of British people in food poverty.

James, now 22, started rescuing perfectly tasty baked goods, such as pancakes, tortilla wraps and flatbreads, from bakeries - starting with his own family-run business in Hertfordshire in 2021.

These items would have otherwise been thrown away due to their odd shape or size, or because of oversupply.

His award-winning FoodTech start-up has since moved into the fruit and vegetables market and, every day, prevents thousands of pieces of food from being binned by collecting them from farms around the country.

Earth & Wheat has so far saved more than 500 tons of wonky or surplus food from going to waste and donated more than 300,000 meals to UK food charities.

For every box sold, the company also donates the equivalent of one meal’s worth of food and is doubling donations for Black Friday on November 24.

James said: “Earth & Wheat supports the King’s Coronation Food Project as we strongly believe that no good food should go to waste. It is fantastic that His Majesty is using his 75th birthday as a way of shining a light on a subject which is extremely concerning from a social and environmental perspective.

“There are an estimated 14m Britons living in food poverty which is shocking, especially when around 12m tons of perfectly good food is wasted every year in the UK.

“We’re committed to donating a meal’s worth of food for every box we sell at Earth & Wheat and have been working closely with charities such as FareShare since we started as they do a wonderful job of getting our donated wonky or surplus food to exactly the people that need it. This not only helps those in food poverty but helps reduce food waste, helping save the planet too.

“We are delighted, therefore, to be able to make another sizeable donation of approximately 3,000 meals to FareShare as part of the Coronation Food Project.”