A Gloucestershire’s restaurants are rethinking their relationships with customers, suppliers and the food economy as a whole to drive an ambitious ‘pay what you can’ model to serve all guests, regardless of their ability to pay.

In the past year, long table Around 20,000 people were fed at below cost (many for free, no questions asked), while 3.4 tonnes of food destined for the bin was saved and the remainder paid a fair price to local suppliers.

It also makes enough money to employ 22 part-time and full-time staff at at least a living wage — none of the work is done by volunteers — and hopes to replicate the model elsewhere.

“At its simplest, we are a restaurant,” said Will North, general manager of The Long Table. “But we’re actually an amazing restaurant and we prioritize being a real living wage employer, [and] Our preferred suppliers not only prioritize [the] The earth is like this, and so are people.

“But what we do is, all of our meals are pay-as-you-go, not chargeable. There’s never any expectation of paying for it. That’s the risk we take.”

An estimated 8 million adults and 3 million children in the UK face food insecurity 2024 – twice as much in 2021.After rampant inflation over the past two years, food costs have risen rose by a quarterWith healthier options costing twice as much per calorie on average, hospital admissions are rising sharply for vitamin and mineral deficiencies and malnutrition, diagnoses that doctors say are rooted in poverty.

Yet UK farms, businesses and households throw away 6.4 million tonnes of edible food every year, enough to feed everyone for 11 weeks. Climate Action NGO Package.

As well as the unfairness of food being thrown away while children go to bed hungry, this waste also has a huge impact on the climate and wider environment.Taking into account farming, manufacturing, packaging, distribution, retail, transportation, storage and preparation costs, followed by waste treatment and disposal, food waste Approximately 18 million tons of carbon emissions are produced Per year.

The long table solves these interrelated problems simultaneously. But North said it would rather not focus on the problem. “We have a space to work together to answer a question: What if everyone in our community had access to great food and someone to eat it with?”

As its name suggests, diners at The Long Table sit at long cafeteria-style tables in an atmosphere that North describes as “radical hospitality.” The restaurant, located next to a bicycle recycling workshop and second-hand furniture warehouse, opens at 10am for coffee and cake. Lunch is served from noon five days a week, and dinner is also served on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

North said a typical lunch service serves 100 to 250 people. “If there are no seats at the table when you come, we’ll bring out more tables.”

Everyone eats the same meals, but that doesn’t mean chefs don’t have room to experiment. Recent dishes include dal with honey-glazed carrots served on fresh flatbread, and a delicious bread and butter pudding served with blue cheese dressing. On Saturdays, the restaurant serves lasagna, cooked by co-founders Tom Herbert and his brother Henry, both famous chefs who have co-hosted TV cooking shows .

The menu is determined by whatever ingredients are available, with sourcing based on minimizing waste and using leftover ingredients where possible, prioritizing local suppliers and seasonality.Many come from fare sharingis a national charity that redistributes surplus food, which is sourced from local producers.

“We do not support organic, oppose organic, support genetically modified [or] Against GMOs, we’re just pro-food,” North said. “But as it happens, our local producers really value protecting the planet above anything else. “

A reliance on surplus means Long Table rarely serves meat, but the principles behind the meat it sources are indicative of its approach. “We have a rule that any animal we purchase must have been touched,” North said. “So that means we follow it from the producer to the abattoir to the butcher.”

With the exception of lamb, none of the animals it cooks are raised for slaughter. The last cow used in the restaurant came from the National Trust’s Wildflower Meadows Conservation Scheme and did not enter the food chain until she was 11 years old and suffering from arthritis.

This restaurant is just one part of The Long Table’s portfolio. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, with support from local church authorities and the National Lottery, the organization was distributing 1,000 pre-cooked frozen meals a week through a network of 20 freezers across Gloucestershire, with three-quarters of these being distributed free to those most in need people charge.

Now that people can come together to eat, the scale of the event continues, and the focus has shifted to supporting other communities to open their own pay-as-you-go cafes, paying for food and chef wages. North said the spin-off cafes have fed up to 6,000 people over the past year, and while The Long Table foots the bill, the community that runs them receives 100 percent of the donations.

Long Table is able to achieve all this thanks to its business structure and model. It is a not-for-profit community interest company that generates revenue from its sales and activities. This fiscal year, it received no grant funding at all.

“Our annual turnover is only around £500,000. Next year it should be around £550,000; we’re spending about £550,000 on that,” North said. About half of diners pay less than cost, so food losses are mitigated by income from cafes and bars and the steady income provided by subscriptions.

It puts the long table in a good position for the future. Plans are underway to replicate the model in Cirencester, while a restaurant in Falmouth is also planning to adapt and adopt a version.

“We show people in the food industry [what] Could be the future of the food world. “But if you don’t want to become a millionaire while doing it, then that’s just the future,” North said. “