Rekub makes chocolates, cake and pie from fruits and vegetables that would normally be wasted.
Rekub
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Waste Warriors
We are committed to converting residual fruit and vegetable streams into food with a longer shelf life.
Making production and consumption net-positive for biodiversity
The project
A wealth of healthy and delicious fruit grows on our Belgian soil. Unfortunately, there are economic and aesthetic reasons why huge stocks of fruit and vegetables are destroyed every year.
One third of the food we produce ends up on the rubbish heap. We are committed to turning waste streams of fruit and vegetables into food with a longer shelf life. For instance, we have already made 600 apple balls from apples with a crazy shape, made litres of pumpkin soup with pumpkins too small for the supermarket (which we donated to food banks), and made apple-pear juice from 40,000 crooked pears and 13,000 saved apples.
Project location
Belgium
Contribution(s)
17696 kg/year surplus food
Project costs
100.000-500.000 €
Participant(s)
We work with different growers/producers for each product:
- Apple farmer Vanlangenaker: supplying apples with a crazy shape.
- Nona’s Artisan Bakery: processing apples into apple balls.
- Pumpkin farmers Ilse and Jeroen in Sint-Gillis-Waas: delivery of pumpkins that supermarkets reject because they are too small, or have a scratch.
- Pear farmer Marijke: supplying crooked pears.
- Verspillingsfabriek: production of soups
- De Lochting: farmer
- Sophyn greens: production of vegetable paste
How are the criteria of the objective met?
Surplus food
- Improve the efficiency of resources used in the production stage to avoid waste (e.g. collect all food products regardless of size or appearance, only produce the necessary quantity).
- Stimulate consumption/recovery/redistribution of surplus food for human consumption: use surplus food for human consumption and avoid discarding it or using it as compost.
- Support food donation and recovery and/or stimulate the consumption of surplus food (e.g. redistribute surplus food to institutions, offer doggy-bags to customers who did not finish their food).
Possible initiatives in which the project is involved :
The project is not part of any existing initiative.
Long-term maintenance
We are planning to set up our own channel to sell products, so we can use that income to start even bigger projects.
Benefits
- Stop wastage of fruit and vegetables rejected by supermarkets because of their size, shape or colour.
- Donation of food for those less fortunate through food banks.
- Partnering with social enterprises to support the social economy.
Other projects linked to the objective: "Surplus food"