From top left, clockwise ... the assistant clears a plate of food into a bin, Matt Moran notices, gets mad, and madder, and madder ... then walks. Moran, co-owner of one of Sydney's top restaurants, Aria, is shown throwing a tantrum at a food stylist who threw away a dish the chef had just prepared. The stylist appears to be resetting the kitchen between takes on a film set, picking up a carefully plated chicken dish and throwing it in a rubbish bin. Moran, standing behind the kitchen bench and having his make-up touched up, notices what the stylist is doing and takes him to task. "Mate what are you doing?" the chef, who is in his 40s, says.

"Why are you throwing that away for? I've just spent half an hour putting that perfectly on a plate, you come along and throw it in the f---ing bin." The stylist, a man in his late 20s or early 30s, quietly says something that sounds like: "We're resetting." Moran replies: "I don't care if you're f---ing resetting, there's nothing wrong with that food; that's being wasteful. "It could have fed one of these guys; it could have fed me. Get it out of the bin and put it back on the f---ing plate." Well mate if this is your job, you do f---ing shoots like this all the time, you waste food like that, I don't want f---ing anything to do with it, get yourselves another chef

The video attracted immediate speculation about its authenticity. Moran is the 2011 ambassador for the 2011 Shout Lunch Fight Hunger campaign, set up by OzHarvest, a non-profit organisation that takes leftover food from restaurants and gives it to homeless shelters. OzHarvest referred smh.com.au to its public relations company, Liquid Ideas, who confirmed the video was staged. OzHarvest founder Ronni Kahn said the new campaign was designed to encourage regional communities to be more mindful of food consumption and wastage. "The issue of feeding those in need goes well beyond the areas we currently service ... We have been working hard to create ways to help regional areas where our yellow OzHarvest vans just don’t have the capability to reach on a day-to-day basis," she said.

"[The campaign] REAP provides regional areas with all the necessary tools that they need to rescue food and deliver it to the disadvantaged. "On top of that, it also serves to stop good food from ending up as landfill." Moran said in a prepared statement that the video was controversial but worth it. "REAP is a simple concept started by leading food charity OzHarvest, who have already rescued millions of meals from going to waste and who have provided millions of people with fresh food that they normally would not have access to," he said. At one point another member of the film crew tries to explain why the stylist threw the food away, saying: "That's just the way we do it."

"The way you guys do it," Moran replies. "No f---ing way, there's nothing wrong with that food. How wasteful is that? Just get it out [of the bin]." A third crew member then intervenes, explaining that the stylist was following orders. "Matt, I'm sorry. We just asked him to do that," the man says. Moran fires back: "Well mate if this is your job, you do f---ing shoots like this all the time, you waste food like that, I don't want f---ing anything to do with it, get yourselves another chef. "Now piss off," he says, walking off set.

The man offers a plaintive "Matt ... " in reply. A spokeswoman for Moran said the chef would release a statement about the incident in the next hour. Follow this reporter on Twitter @geerob