Surplus to Purpose: New 'food waste' supermarket to open in Bradford

Yorkshire Post

Founder of Surplus to Purpose Adam Smith shares why he's chosen Bradford to open his landmark superstore.   Shortly after the social entrepreneur received a Yorkshire Award.

Transcript

00:00We're opening up a brand new store, Flagship Store, which is going to be opening in Bradford.

00:03That's on Monday the 17th of March. It's in collaboration with St Vincent's in Bradford.

00:08They offered us a space and we took it. Next week we'll be painting and getting it all set up,

00:13but this will be our flagship store, which will be available by foot and by vehicle,

00:18which our other stores currently aren't. And that will be the one that we hopefully bring people to

00:23and hopefully inspire people to create these shops, not just in the UK but all over the world as well.

00:28And how much food do you hope to save?

00:32We're looking at about a thousand tonnes a year at each location. Bradford will probably be a bit

00:36bigger than that, so that's the equivalent of around two and a half million meals worth of food

00:39a year. And how many stores are you hoping to have? Well, by the end of the year I'm hoping

00:45to have about 25 stores, all service to purpose shops, all completely inclusive, empowering people

00:50in positions of employment, working alongside volunteers, obviously stopping a lot of food

00:54from going to waste. This will be hopefully the first one that we have in collaboration with

00:58another project where we hope to inspire others to collaborate with us to create these type of

01:02facilities for people. How important is it to you? It means everything to me. I've seen global food

01:08waste when I've travelled across the world. I've been a chef as well for 20 years and I've seen

01:12the destruction that food waste is having on the planet from overproduction and also waste as well.

01:18So it means everything to me. If we can educate people and inspire people into changing their

01:22behaviours towards food, then hopefully we can have an impact and create change. And why is Bradford

01:26an important place to have your flagship? Bradford is obviously the City of Culture this year.

01:32There's a lot of energy in Bradford at the moment. They approached us, which was amazing.

01:36I used to live there as well. I lived in Thornton for four years, so I know it really well. I've got

01:39a very love-hate relationship with Bradford for lots of good and bad reasons. But yeah, it just

01:44feels like it's really fitting. There's a lot of really positive energy around it at the moment

01:47and hopefully we can have a massive impact on employees.

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