Waste food firm is planning to target business community

A charity that serves up waste food in its pay as you feel restaurant in Manchester city centre is targeting the corporate community.

Real Junk Food is planning to offer buffets, canapes and hot meals to businesses in the city.

The social enterprise currently runs a temporary restaurant in Oxford Street but is planning to launch the next phase of the project in September.

The social enterprise already runs special events such as supper clubs and is now looking to expand into new areas.

Founder and director Corin Bell said: “The year that we have spent running the restaurant has been amazing.

“We’ve been astounded by the welcome that we’ve received locally and we’re beyond proud of the sense of community and inclusion that we’ve created.

“What we want to do now is take everything we’ve learned, and do more.

“This will give us a much more solid focus as an organisation and there will be more structure.

“We are going to do a mix of lots of corporate jobs, private events, charity and community sector groups and we are exploring that future.”

Real Junk Food bases its menu around ingredients that would be normally be thrown away by grocers and supermarkets.

Corin said: “We are lucky that we have a team of really talented chefs here who love the challenge and can be flexible.

“There are some ingredients that we always have loads of such as bread, so we are never going to be short of things like that – which isn’t necessarily a good thing.

“Ultimately it needs to be sustainable, that is one of our main aims, and the long-term mission is to fix the broken food system.”

The new enterprise will be based in a large commercial kitchen and will see Real Junk Food working with a large social housing provider.

Corin, who previously worked as a freelance project manager, added: “To date, we have never bought a single ingredient, despite serving over 25,000 meals since opening the restaurant.

“As our project grows, we might start to need to supplement our ‘waste food’ ingredients with ingredients we purchase to continue to deliver great quality meals for all.

“Real Junk Food Manchester would like to give huge thanks to Bruntwood, and the Oglesby family particularly, for the opportunities and support they have offered over the last two years.

“The relationship has been incredibly important to Real Junk Food growing as an organisation, and we hope to continue to work together to support people in our city.”