Amsterdam – Dutch restaurant Instock rescues food that would otherwise go to waste from supermarkets and other vendors, and devises menus that change daily.
Every day the restaurant sees a new batch of imperfect fruit, misshapen vegetables or day-old bread that, although still good to eat, are not suitable to be sold in stores. Unaware of the produce coming in each day, the chefs are compelled to be creative and experiment with whatever they find in their delivery each morning.
Founded by former employees of Albert Heijn, the business was pitched as an incubator project to the Dutch supermarket chain. Its four founders sought to draw attention to the whole supply chain implications of discarding supermarket food, including the energy wasted on packaging, transport, cooling and preparation.
‘We cannot indefinitely continue to produce, consume and discard,’ says Instock. ‘The time has come for new initiatives that challenge us to take a different point of view of society and our food system.’
Fixation on provenance is giving way to a more honest appraisal of food systems. To learn more about how farm-to-table dining is being challenged by Whole-system Thinking, read our Trash-to-Table microtrend.