Getting our hands dirty ahead of a non-wasteful Christmas

Within the four walls of our office, and four sides of the Zoom screen, we have been talking about Christmas since… well, last Christmas! But now it’s November, we can bring out the C word in public and boy am I excited! I love Christmas – the getting together of friends, the reminder of love we have for each other and all we have, not to mention festive foods!

This year at Rubies, we have created a special chutney. It’s the perfect partner to any cheeseboard and is made with surplus apples, spices, and cranberries. Christmas in a jar!

The surplus apples in our recipes come from the orchard of one of our longest-standing farmers. Throughout this year, as we reached out to our farmers, we found, due to a combination of Covid and Brexit, the vast majority of seasonal pickers were no longer in the UK and many orchards were being left unpicked. Without the support of seasonal workers, the costs of harvesting the orchard were higher than the price paid by supermarkets.

So, last week, amid the array of meetings in Glasgow for COP26, the Rubies in the Rubble team hit the orchards, with the support of The Felix Project, Oddbox, and Gleaning Network. Fuelled with good tunes and cheese & chutney sandwiches, we picked over seven tonnes of delicious, crunchy apples in a day – all to be distributed to UK charities and enjoyed in our chutneys. It was great to be on the farm and reconnect with food again – remembering the amount of work, energy and resource that go into growing good produce.

Food waste contributes up to 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, compared with aviation at 2%. We in the UK reject between 20%-40% of a harvest often because of aesthetics, or, as in this case, because it is financially unviable to harvest. This makes the great impact of food waste on our environment even more stark. Hearing the announcement that we are on track to 2.4°C warming is saddening, but to keep 1.5°C alive, we must make food waste and responsible consumption a priority.

Christmas is a time of joy, love and cheer. However, it is also a time of excess. In light of COP, I hope that as we all gear up for the festive season, we keep planet in mind and ensure we appreciate and value everything we have.