Jo Hercberg
Trick or treat? One Halloween my costume and makeup were so effective I made a young trick or treater cry. Whoops.
At least, I hope it was my make up, not my miserable face.
We’ve not carved a lantern this year, so no pumpkin pie for us tonight.
But I am taking the opportunity to draw a tenuous hook from the world of monsters and ghouls to the monstrous amount of food being wasted.
Every year in the UK 18 million tonnes of food end up in landfill.
It’s an environmental catastrophe.
Meanwhile too many folk struggle to eat well and healthily; too many children go to school hungry.
But a social entrepreneur in Sheffield, Jo Hercberg, is tackling these environmental and social challenges head on.
Jo founded The Real Junk Food Project Sheffield, which enables people to enjoy great food and is a thriving social enterprise with diverse revenue streams. It has created extensive education, training and volunteering opportunities AND jobs. It will feature in a BBC documentary this autumn.
They save 6 tonnes of food from being wasted, every week. Super, tasty, wholesome, scrumptious, healthy, delicious food that would otherwise be thrown away.
The food is sold at two pay-as-you-feel cafes, a market, via outside catering, to primary schools and in veg boxes.
They have a variety of income streams.
And I’ve just recorded a podcast interview with Jo for Responsible Finance.
You can listen to it or download it here or through iTunes, along with previous episodes.
Hope you enjoy this; if so, please share the podcast, tell others about it, and ideally leave a rating or review on iTunes so other people can learn about the work and impact of The Real Junk Food Project Sheffield.