A Little More Action Please

Yesterday we saw over 80 guests from all four corners of the food industry join us for a call to action at the Roof Gardens. We called to solve the food crisis that is having huge effects on both planetary and human health. 

We heard from Ample's Leon Aarts about the importance of working together to solve injustices, from EAT Lancet Commission's Gunhild Stordalen on the reasons behind why everyone should have a PHD (planetary health diet), and from Real Zero's Professor Hugh Montgomery about the intricate link between policy, big food and our health.

Our panel proved insightful with perspectives from Andy Cato (Wildfarmed), Professor Greta Defeyter (Northumbria University), Nicole Pisani (Chefs in Schools) and Sue Pritchard (Food, Farming & Countryside Commission) who shared their stories, successes and hopes for the food system.

We then saw Ample's Steve Thomas and Oakland International's Dean Attwell walk us through Ample's vision for the future with Ample Kitchen; a place where surplus produce will be transformed into delicious and nutritious soups, stews and sauces. More on this to come!

And to round off the evening, Ample's Kate Fortescue revealed the wonderful dishes of the evening made from Ample's surplus produce; Ample Thai-Spiced Pumpkin Soup, Ample Shakshuka and Ample Ragù Lasagne.

A big thank you to all our speakers and of course to author and farmer Sarah Langford for MCing the event, seamlessly blending one speaker's story to the next.

The event ended on a collective call to action. We asked our guests to pledge #JustOneThing that they will start doing to change the world for the better, whether in their job or in their personal life. We will be mailing these pledges back to them as a reminder of their promises. 

Here at Ample we believe that together we can shift things in the right direction. This event highlighted just a fraction of the people succeeding to do this, and just a taster of what is possible.

So in the words of the great Elvis Presley, something we at Ample would like is...

A little less conversation, a little more action please.

Image from @carlosclickuk