Sun, May 21: From Trash To Table - Retail Grocer Waste

Sunday, May 21^st, 1pm-4pm

From Trash To Table: Retail Grocer Waste with Dave

Have you ever thrown away food and wished that you could re-purpose it or make something delicious with it? There is a way! This year at Gather we’ve made a dedication to reduce our food waste and become more conscious about how we use ALL of our food. In our new From Trash To Table Series we’ll be bringing you a new topic each month. And since we’ll be using food scraps, it reduces our food cost…which means that we can donate it back into the community! All of the profits from our From Trash To Table Series will be donated to Food To Power. Food To Power has redistributed over $6 million of healthy groceries since 2013 in the Colorado Springs region. Using a "direct redistribution" model, Food to Power transports surplus healthy foods from local supermarkets, backyard gardens and cafeterias to 20+ non-profit and community-based grocery programs.

Our fourth month will continue to build on topics that we’ve discussed in our first three classes (but don’t worry, they aren’t required to take this one!). In American Retail Grocery Outlets, about 30% of food (16 Billion Pounds) of food gets tossed each year. In this class we’re going to look at some of these food products that are tossed due to expiration date, damaged/bruising, overstocking, changing of packaging, etc… and repurpose them into delicious recipes. This class is going to specifically focus on foods from the produce section of the grocery store and how you can turn them into fantastic show stopping meals. This is a hands-on class. This class is taught in our 2x4 format – we’ll split up into groups of 2 and each twosome will tackle one recipe.

On the menu:

• This class does not have a menu as I am going to visit local grocery stores in the area the week of the class and gather the produce they are going to throw away.  Since I cannot list individual recipes and they will vary depending on what I can collect, I can guarantee that the recipes we will be making will be quite over the top as we make a whole meal, appetizer, salad/soup, entrée, dessert based around produce department waste.  The entrée will most likely contain a protein, but it will not be the main focus of the recipe.