Christine Weller and Clare Box are doing their bit to help reduce local food waste by opening a pop up café in East Twickenham that intercepts surplus food.

They are part of therealjunkfoodproject.org a growing movement started by a former Leeds chef who wanted to do something to reduce the UK’s vast quantities of food waste. Clare enjoys being part of this innovative food movement which now consists of more than 100 Real Junk Food cafes “Everyone is welcome to come and have lunch with us - we attract a wide range of people from those interested in finding out more, to those who want to help our environmental cause and do their bit for the community”.

The Real Junk Food Project - Twickenham, ‘pop up’ café is open every Monday from 11am - 1pm at the ETNA Community Centre and uses food donated by St Margarets Tesco and Harris and Hoole, with other supermarkets and food retailers soon to be on board. “It is a new and popular, concept” explains Crissy. “People just turn up, have lunch and then ‘pay what they feel’ for good food which would otherwise go to landfill”.

The café has been running since June and now Crissy and Clare are crowdfunding with South West London Environment Network (SWLEN) swlen.org.uk/crowdfund to raise funds for equipment and certification to put their café on a more permanent footing. Colin Cooper from SWLEN is enthusiastic about this latest crowdfunding project.

“Since launching our local crowdfunding platform in March, we have already raised money to set up grants for school gardens and to create hedgehog highways in Barnes, so it’s nice to now focus our attention on reducing waste. If you have an idea for local environment project which needs funds, please get in contact with us.”