Impact Cafe - Circular Cooking: three ways to tackle food waste

Hey foodlovers, kitchen princesses and lazy cooks!

We all love a good meal, yet we manage to let more than a third of the food produced worldwide go to waste. Entrepreneurs, students and creatives all over the world are looking for solutions to feed people instead of bins. At Impact Café - Circular Cooking on the 3rd of February, three of those pioneers from our community inspire you how to consume, buy and design your food in a waste-free way.

Check in for tips for a waste-free kitchen from Lisa Petmecky’s e-book, the inspiring journey in creating products that solve foodwaste in the supply chain by Junion Hanenberg from the cooperative company Intelligent Food and some real time produced fingerfood from awardwinning Rotterdam-based entrepreneur Falafval. It’s a Café, so plenty of time for sharing ideas, dreams and questions.

 

IntelligentFood developes delicious products for the food industry – based on residual flow, created with inventive & innovative recipes. Custom-made, hand picked from a selection of previously developed products, small & exclusive or semi mass production, for private label and/or newly developed brands. For supermarkets, retail chains, hospitality, catering and wholesale.

They use waste streams. Semi-finished products or cuttings left over from food production, which would be lost to the fine diners without the intervention of 'intelligent' foodies like us. A pitty to make that happen, smart to make a new product out of residuals in a sustainable way.

There are two mottos in my life that I personally live by. One is “borrowed” from prof. Dr. Mr. Ir. Sicco Santema. “Fun makes it run”. For me this represents contemporary youth culture. Today's young people are less and less concerned with becoming millionaires. But more and more with just a good life. But without destroying the earth. That is how companies should do business. Making sure your stakeholders are satisfied, having a good time. But then without harming the environment and society.

My second motto is: "You have to try everything at least twice". Once is (often) not enough to really enjoy something. The first time you are busy understanding, experiencing and organizing everything. The second time, you generally have more time to enjoy yourself. Because you have experienced it before. And yes, enjoyment is in line with my first motto. “Fun makes it run”

 

One third of all the food that's produced globally never ends up on your plate. All this food waste, or 'afval' in Dutch, causes unnecessary loss of resources and it's exhausting our planet. In the Netherlands we have a lot of food waste as one of the biggest producers of fruit & veg. However, a lot of these products are not waste at all, but simply too small, overlooked or blemished. 

FALAFVAL turns waste into taste by making delicious vegan falafel from leftover vegetables and legumes. Our mission is to create a sustainable food chain that serves both us and our planet. Because at FALAFVAL, we know from experience that food tastes better when it's good.

We started our passion project next to our fulltime jobs in march 2019. Since then, we have:

• sold over 5000 FALAFVAL dishes via events, retailers, and restaurants JUST in Rotterdam
• saved over 600 kg of vegetables; the equivalent of the total annual waste of 20 households in the Netherlands

Fully committed to save at least 25.000 kg of vegetables & legumes in 2023

 

When I was nineteen, I travelled to Singapore and Vietnam to complete an eight month internship with an advertising start-up. After work and on weekends, I spent a lot of time exploring the different food courts and the traditional cuisine in South-East Asia. This is when my passion for cooking started to develop further. After returning to Europe, I started studying in Rotterdam where I slowly made the connections between sustainability and business. Nonetheless, I still believe that businesses will change once the consumer does. Therefore, I am trying to make my own life more sustainable. And the kitchen is my favorite area to do so.

Abstract E-book

If you as an individual are questioning your position in the transition to a circular economy, you have come to the right place. There are many changes that you can make in your own life that can reduce your impact on our planet and enhance the life of society in the long-term. Some of these changes can happen in the kitchen. My passion for cooking and sustainability have inspired me to write my first e-book. Shocked by the little involvement expected from individuals in achieving a circular economy, I was motivated to write a piece on how YOU can redesign your kitchen to be a more circular place in your home. You will be provided with an extensive guide that touches upon grocery shopping, storing food, our food consumption as well as reducing waste. Feel free to get in touch if you want to know more: lisa@petmecky.com.