The Slow Food Youth Network presents the second World Disco Soup Day at the Enderun Colleges Tent, 5 to 9 p.m. today, April 28. Environmentalists and slow food advocates Sen. Loren Legarda and Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Berna Romulo-Puyat are expected to grace the event, which aims to raise awareness about food waste. As a global event, similar gatherings spearheaded by young people all over the world will take place in various cities..
An initiative of the Slow Food Youth Network (SFYN), the global gatherings are part of the fight against food waste. From Uganda to Japan, Brazil to the Netherlands, United States to the Philippines, SFYN will organize parties where food waste will be turned into a Disco Soup as a fun way to save food, while thinking seriously about the amount of food that goes to waste.
“My generation often thinks about the challenges we are facing as massive problems we cannot solve—food waste is one of them. Events like Disco Soups gather a lot of young people and show them that being the change you want to see is way easier than you would expect. It is actually fun to do something about it,” said SFYN Executive Director Jorrit Kiewik.
A total of 70 events will be hosted all over the world, specifically in the following countries: Albania, Belgium, Brazil, Colombia, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Iran, Ireland, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Madagascar, Mexico, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Peru, Portugal, the Philippines, Rwanda, South Africa, Switzerland, Uganda, the UK, and the United States.
Why fight food waste with a Disco Soup?
Today, one third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted. A great deal of good, edible food is being fed instead to bins. Saving 25 percent of this would be enough to feed 870 million hungry people in the world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. SFYN cares about this problem and wants to make a change in a unique, fun way, not just by telling people not to waste food, but by celebrating saving food. The motto is “filling bellies instead of bins!”
What is a Disco Soup?
The Disco Soup are events in which volunteers are invited to collect, wash, clean, cut, and cook leftover food (usually from a farmers’ market) or any food that would go to waste, perhaps for not conforming to commercial aesthetic standards. It is also a gastronomic, artistic and musical event that brings together young people, students, children, the elderly, cooks and all the supporters of the battle against food waste. Finally, it is a transformation tool that brings together diverse knowledge for education and awareness.
Disco Soup started six years ago in Berlin, Germany, as Schnippeldisko, a “protest soup” against food waste that fed 8,000 people. Since then, Disco Soup events have spread across the world as a fun, meaningful way to bring this crisis into focus. Many different editions have taken place. Each Disco Soup event was individually run, relying on local volunteers to organize every detail, until 2016, when SFYN Brazil organized a national Disco Soup Day. Last year SFYN organized the first ever World Disco Soup Day and turned more than 5,000 kilograms of food into 25,000 meals. Over 100 Disco Soups were organized in 40 countries, across five continents.
The Slow Food Youth Network is a group of young people, ages 18-35, who have come together and connected through this network and through their support for the holistic and inspiring philosophy of Slow Food. The network reaches all over the world to youth in 80 different countries.
This network includes people from a variety of backgrounds, cultures, and demographics, all of whom share a common goal: to contribute to a better food system.
Slow Food is a global grassroots organization that envisions a world in which all people can access and enjoy food that is good for them, good for those who grow it, and good for the planet. Slow Food involves over a million activists, chefs, experts, youth, farmers, fishers, and academics in over 160 countries.
