Get creative and help tackle food waste

Do you enjoy experimenting with photography? RSA Catalyst award winners Plan Zheroes, in partnership with award.io are inviting you to use your photography skills to show how surplus food can be used to alleviate food poverty. The more creative you can be with it, the better!

A bit of background 

Plan Zheroes is an entrepreneurial charity that was funded by the our Catalyst programme back in 2012. Their mission is simple; connecting excess food from London based restaurants to homeless shelters, soup kitchens and charities in need.

Since the initial grant, they’ve gone from strength to strength. In January 2015, the Houses of Parliament published a report about consumption, food waste and food poverty, for which we were invited to give evidence. The report, led by Anne McIntosh MP and EFRA, recommended that all food businesses should collaborate with Plan Zheroes. You can find more information about their progress on their project page.

1000 photos of surplus food

By serendipity and through Stefan Lubo FRSA, Plan Zheroes founder Maria Ana, recently met Praveen Enjapuri, a creative entrepreneur who started award.io, an online platform that runs photography exhibitions.

Award.io helps organisations and creative individuals with an idea for an exhibition. They can use the platform to accept entries, source relevant content and invite creative photographers from all the over the world to upload relevant photos where they have the opportunity to exhibit and sell their work through the platform.

Award.io's curators will then pick a shortlist of entries for exhibition once the deadline has finished and these entries will be printed and exhibited at prestigious galleries, open spaces, and other locations all around the world.

Praveen always thought his platform could be used to help fundraising for charities, and we agreed to experiment with Plan Zheroes.

Plan Zheroes had already been working with London’s famed Borough Market helping to shift 9,000 tonnes of surplus food, so in lieu of the partnership, and with the market celebrating 1000 years, this gave origin to the theme 1000 Photos of Food with the exhibition due to take place at Market Hall.

So, between April and June, anyone who is passionate about photography and food, can submit their best images to the project and help tell the real stories about food, food poverty and how to stop food waste.

Enter a photo now, or find out more

The best photos will be selected for the exhibition and all profits will go to Plan Zheroes; the hope is that this this initiative will raise awareness as well as create a fantastic piece of visual research (ethnographic, cultural and creative) to help us better understand what food poverty/waste really is and what surplus food can do to change it.