Introducing: The Wasteless Plate
Dolce’s nationwide Wasteless Plate campaign shines a light on food waste in schools and explores ways to tackle it.
This Wasteless Plate online hub shares research, practical tools and inspiring ideas to help pupils and families understand what happens to food when it’s thrown away – and how small changes can make a big difference.
Understanding food waste in schools
To better understand the scale of food waste in UK schools, Dolce commissioned independent research exploring the habits, attitudes and awareness of pupils and parents. The findings reveal growing concern around food waste and the opportunity for schools to play a powerful role in helping pupils develop more sustainable habits.
The UK’s first ever ‘zero food waste’ school lunch initiative
As part of the Wasteless Plate campaign, Dolce launched the UK’s first ever ‘zero food waste’ school lunch initiative.
The three ingredients:
1. The Wasteless Plate menu – designed by Dolce’s chefs featuring meals that use as much of every ingredient as possible, reducing waste in school kitchens
2. Dolce’s partnership with ReFood to turn unavoidable food waste into green energy
3. Dolce’s partnership with Olio so any good-to-eat surplus meals are donated to local communities
ReFood collects unavoidable food waste that would ordinarily go to landfill and processes it at its advanced anaerobic digestion facilities, where it’s transformed into biogas, a renewable energy source. Across ReFood’s three UK plants, this biogas generates enough electricity to power around 13,600 homes every year.
Olio works with schools to ensure that any good-to-eat surplus meals are rescued and shared with the local community, allowing schools to reduce food waste while helping people in their local area access nutritious food that might otherwise go to waste.
Free Food Waste Activity Sheets
Bring the Wasteless Plate campaign to life in your classroom or at home, with our free downloadable food waste activity sheets.
What our schools have to say
Simon Budgen, Headteacher at Hawarden High School
“Working with Dolce, Olio and ReFood has completely changed how we approach food waste at Hawarden High School. Instead of worrying about unavoidable waste, we now know that anything left over will either be transformed into renewable energy or shared with people in the local community who can benefit from it. It’s incredibly positive for the school.”
Lorem Ipsum, Headteacher at Placeholder School Name
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