HOW would you feel chomping into a sandwich made from ingredients that other people had thrown away?

That is the plan for a new food surplus cafe in Oxford – the city’s first.

Customers would be invited to pay what they want for sandwiches and salads made from food chucked out by supermarkets and restaurants.

A group of food waste campaigners held their first public meeting last week to get the wheels moving on the project.

Organiser Peter Lefort said: “We’re talking about wonky carrots, the things people think doesn’t look like what food should look like, but is totally edible.

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“There are businesses and restaurants who have food waste, which is just a natural by-product of being in the food industry.

“It’s all in-date stuff the wholesalers want to get off their shelves so they can get new stock in. If we can collect all that it will be more than enough. We want to make people realise food is food.”

The group is even hoping to “recycle”

an unwanted building, and have put out a call for an empty premises with cheap rent.

If they cannot find a permanent home they plan to run a series of pop-up cafes at different venues.

The group is calling for restaurants that might be interested in helping supply food to get in touch.

Mr Lefort, who is also project officer for Community Action Groups Oxfordshire, said: “People would pay what they can afford or what they think the food is worth.

“We would also try to get across new skills and knowledge about how to store food properly and avoid waste at home.”

He said the long-term aim of the cafe would be to tackle the problem of food waste so well that they could no longer make a business out of wasted food.

He said: “The long-term aim is to not exist. We want to help tackle the very problem which means this can exist in the first place.”

Restaurateur Clinton Pugh, who owns Tarifa, Kazbar and Cafe Coco on Cowley Road said he thought the cafe sounded like a good idea.

He said: “We use everything – you have to be as efficient as possible.

The shape of a carrot does not determine its taste.

“The only restaurants that would throw away food are chains that sell things in packets.”

The food surplus cafe idea was inspired by a report last year into food poverty in Oxford called Feeding the Gaps.

The report collected interviews with 30 of the 40 city services for people in food poverty, such as the Porch Steppin’ Stone homeless centre in East Oxford and the Restore mental health charity.

Mr Lefort said: “People think of Oxford as a centre of affluence but that is not everyone.”

Mr Lefort said he hoped the Oxford cafe could work with Oxford Food Bank, which redirects about £1m worth of unwanted food to 50 city charities a year.

The group is now planning to run a pilot pop-up cafe in East Oxford to see whether Oxford is ready.