Since April, P&O Cruises and Cunard have been working with food redistribution charity UK Harvest to pass on unneeded food from our ships to charities, homeless centres, refuges and youth centres.
Now with Lockdown two starting UK Harvest is organising The Most Wasted Dinner Party, on November 27, which will show how to create a three-course restaurant quality meal from leftovers and some of the country’s most commonly wasted foods.
For a £15 donation, party guests will be able to follow along with the live cookery demonstration from UK Harvest professional chefs The Hairy Harvesters. The Most Wasted Dinner Party also includes a performance from The Sleepy Lagoon Orchestra, playing dance band numbers and well-known musical theatre hits.
Funds raised will go towards UK Harvest’s network of vans which collect donated food across the south west and south east. Being a small team UK Harvest need to focus on food collection and distribution, leaving little time to drive fundraising, so this is a rare opportunity to support with fundraising. Even if you cannot make November 27, and can afford it, you may wish to consider signing up to the event just to make a donation.
At the last count P&O Cruises and Cunard have donated 161 tonnes of fresh, frozen and dry food produce which has been redistributed as 576,786 meals.
Our relationship with UK Harvest was forged by Chris Chudley, hotel general manager, who like all colleagues across the business encountered new challenges brought about by our pause in operations.
Chris had to find out what could best be done with lots of surplus food on board our ships with no guests to enjoy it. After researching a number of organisations it was felt that UK Harvest were the charity making best use of donated food not only passing donated food directly on but also turning donated raw food into meals. Needing to act fast at the beginning of lockdown, when we had the most fresh food on board, Les Grimes, supply chain inventory consultant, fast-tracked the supplier process and Simon Coley, senior manager food and beverage, worked out the most effective and efficient ways to get food from our ships to UK Harvest.
Prior to each ship coming to dock in Southampton teams onboard, working with Guest Experience, Procurement and Product Development colleagues, have carried out an inventory so food near its use by date can be donated when the ship comes into port. This involves a huge effort from our on board stores and F&B Managers who have to identify all of short dated stock and rotations. This has also helped to identify what we don’t use effectively so can save costs for future by reducing our inventory.
This has all been an ongoing process throughout lockdown with Arcadia the most recent ship to make a donation this week. To see what then happens when donated food leaves the ships members of P&O Cruises Guest Experience team have recently been to UK Harvest’s base in Chichester to help pack food for redistribution.
You can find out more about UK Harvest or sign up for The Most Wasted Dinner Party here.