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A cafe set up to tackle the problem of food waste by serving up items rejected by supermarkets and other shops has opened its doors in Cardiff .

The Real Junk Food Project is a UK-wide anti-food waste project which partners with other retailers, restaurants, farmers, and food charities in a bid to send as little produce as possible to landfill.

Run by volunteers, the Cathays cafe intercepts food which would otherwise be wasted and turns it into nutritious meals which customers paying for them on a pay-as-you-feel basis.

Many of the items used are those rejected by shops because of imperfections – including wonky fruit and veg – but the group also says it wants to challenge misconceptions about best before dates, which it says are applied to some food too early or unnecessarily.

(Image: James Price)

'Challenging existing ideas'

They aim to challenge grey areas of food regulations and do not restrict themselves by expiration dates – preferring instead to judge individual items by whether they look, smell and taste okay for consumers.

Similar establishments have opened across Britain and now Cardiff is getting in on the act.

The cafe opened for the first time on Monday with a menu offering meals including potato and chick pea curry and rice and flatbread.

(Image: James Price)

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The new venture has been set up in the old Embassy Cafe in Cathays Terrace and is working in partnership with the Cathays Youth and Community Project.

The cafe is open from 12pm to 6pm Mondays to Fridays although director Josh Quigley – who has worked as a chef for the last eight years – said he hoped to be able to extend the opening times once the project had taken hold.

Josh said: “We are here to highlight the amount of food waste happening in the UK and globally. We are looking to challenge the ideas about what is still good and safe to eat.

(Image: James Price)

Responses 'pretty overwhelming'

“We work on a grassroots level where we go into supermarkets, to market traders, restaurants and businesses, and intercept food they no longer have any use for.

“With all the food we intercept and which is donated we follow all the usual food hygiene regulations. We don’t serve anything that’s spoiled or has turned.”

The 24-year-old added: “It’s a volunteer-led project and we have got about 10 of them at the moment but we are looking at expanding the volunteer network.

(Image: James Price)

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“The responses have been pretty overwhelming and people who have heard about it want to come along and help.

“We are hoping people realise everything we serve is of a very high quality. When they realise that our aim is to serve hundreds of people a week.

“Hopefully we can put ourselves out of business because if we do our job properly there won’t be any food waste.”

The project has not been set up aimed specifically at homeless people or others in need – but for everyone.

(Image: James Price)

Josh explained: “We think it devalues certain groups of people if we say this is only fit for homeless people, if we give the impression they are not worthy of fresh food.”

It is thought as much as 15m tonnes of food is wasted every year across the UK. That figure includes produce thrown away at home as well as by retailers.