Meet the Winners

Hubbub and Starbucks are delighted to announce the six winners of the Eat It Up Fund, which will distribute £40,000 to each organisation.

 
 

Sow the City: Grounds to Grow

Manchester based social enterprise Sow the City will team up with Starbucks stores to collect waste coffee grounds, to cultivate mushrooms in. The oyster mushrooms they harvest will be packaged and distributed by e-bike for sale and to Hubbub’s Community Fridge Network. Spent mushroom blocks will then be re-purposed as soil conditioner and re-distributed to Sow the City’s community garden network.  

 
 
 

Tom’s Feast: Forgotten Feast

Headed up by eco-chef, food writer and food waste campaigner Tom Hunt, Tom’s Feast will develop an ice cream from surplus fruit, veg and dairy under the name ‘Forgotten Feast’. Innovative sourcing and inventive flavours using commonly wasted food items will mean tastebuds are tickled and awareness is raised.

 
 

The Hornbeam Centre

The Hornbeam Centre will rescue surplus food from farmers in East Anglia and South-East England, distributing it to food cooperatives, pantries, and other mutual-aid initiatives across Waltham Forest. With project partners The Better Food Shed and Organic Lea, they will connect farmers with five local groups to develop a redistribution model to support people at risk of experiencing food poverty.  

 
 

Northhampton Town FC Community Trust

Using the power of football, this community campaign will inspire families in Northamptonshire to tackle food waste. With Planet League they’ll offer a gamified experience, setting football fans and their friends and families challenges from turning their leftovers into delicious new meals to transforming vegetable peelings into crisps. A series of fun workshops will further amplify the campaign and bring the whole community together to bring food waste right down.  (Winner of The British Association for Sustainable Sport Fan Engagement Award 2024)

 
 
 

Natural Resources Institute (NRI), University of Greenwich

The NRI aims to upcycle brewer’s spent grain (BSG) to create a meat alternative burger. The project, led by Dr Parag Acharya and Dr Micael De Andrade Lima, combines shelf-life studies and eco-innovative extraction of BSG protein to create a plant-based meat, making it a comprehensive approach to addressing food waste and sustainable food production.

The Wonki Collective

Food waste costs UK food manufacturers £6.7bn annually whilst unnecessarily emitting 2.4m tonnes of greenhouse gases. The Wonki Collective is on a mission to stop supply chain waste. They have pioneered the first business-to-business matchmaking technology to enable food and drink manufacturers to efficiently identify and sell surplus ingredients. This funding will allow them to advance their technology whilst supporting more manufacturers to identify surplus as early as possible to maximise nutritional and commercial value.