A group of concerned citizens based in the Netherlands has come up with a unique way to feed Europe's growing number of asylum seekers, serving them meals made from food destined for the dump.

Inspired by reclaimed food initiatives in Melbourne, a collective in Amsterdam called Guerilla (sic) Kitchen has created soups, salads and baked goods from food waste.

Their motto is to fill bellies not bins by "ambushing residents of Amsterdam with deliciousness, rescued from the trash".

In the last three months, Guerilla Kitchen has shared food with hundreds of undocumented asylum seekers.

Food that would have been throw away is collected by Guerilla Kitchen in Amsterdam to make meals. ( Facebook: Guerilla Kitchen )

Guerilla Kitchen began when three dumpster-divers from the Netherlands, Spain and Australia began scouring markets and supermarkets for surplus produce.

The three then started to give away the food they found, turning the "ugly" produce into imaginative dinners.

"It's like one-day-old bread or food that has expiry dates or broken packages," founder and Dutch international communications graduate Gerda van den Dool said.

"From markets it's more like vegetables, for example, ugly carrots."

Within months, Guerilla Kitchen volunteers grew from three to more than 100 people.

More than 1 billion tonnes of edible food goes to waste annually, and yet the UN estimates one in nine people do not have enough to eat.

In September, even world leaders had a taste of a landfill lunch at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit.

Guerilla Kitchen in Amsterdam holds a dinner each week for locals using only food waste. ( Guerilla Kitchen )

Groups takes food movement on road

Moved by the images of tens-of-thousands of asylum seekers travelling to Europe, Ms van den Dool and group member Ana Requena now plan to take its food kitchen on the road with an initiative called Bellies Beyond Borders.

The group will convert a Mercedes bus into a mobile kitchen, using the 5,000 euros crowdsourced online.

But the Amsterdam-based group admits changing viewpoints remains a significant challenge, including among African migrants, who live in Amsterdam's squat community.

"We have to show them like, look this is what we eat and it is fine and we have lots of people who come to our dinners and they also eat this food," said 27 year-old van den Dool.

"We want to build everything from scratch because our policy is no waste, so we want to integrate this into the way that we build our bus."

The group's first destination is Serbia, where there is already a small established food waste movement.

Rather than dumpster-diving, the duo hopes to create relationships with shop owners and farmers to source the free produce.

"I think farmers are also a big player in food waste — they throw quite a lot away," Ms van den Dool said.

The pair hope to not only give migrants a feed, but provide tools for the migrants to create their own dishes.

"When you are dumpster diving, you can never know, you get some ingredients and you have to mix it to create something so you are never know what you are going to do," said Ms Requena, 24.

She explained the group was not trying to replace the work of NGOs.

"If we can talk with at least 20, it is going to be more important than if we feed 200 people," she said.

"Soup is one thing, but if you talk with them and listen to them and tell them that this is a bad situation but their life is going to be better and better, then it is going to be more useful than just to give a plate of soup."