Skip to main content

A changemaker’s Journey – Hilary Whitwell

I met Hilary Whitwell when I was picking up food and snacks for the jam from the Best Before Project, where she is one of the core organisers, and we had a chance to talk in the traffic.

What is your background and what made you decide to set out on your mission?

I am a physiotherapist by background who stumbled and then fell head first into this project. About 2 years ago I was at a Tai Chi workshop and during one of the breaks I idly picked up a magazine. In it

was an interview of Mark Boyle who lives without money and has set up skills sharing website called http://www.justfortheloveofit.org. I joined the network and a few months later Voytek Stando, the founder of Best Before Project, put out an appeal for people interested in setting up a group to stop perfectly good food being thrown away just because it is past its ‘best before’ date.

Can you describe a couple of high and low points on the way?

There have been very few low points but there have definitely been some ‘what on earth am I doing’ moments. What the hell am I doing in a warehouse in Holborn on a rainy Saturday evening helping unload crates of apples and pears before changing in the toilet on my way to a night out with friends? What has possessed me to get lost a hundred times in Brixton trying to find the People’s Kitchen to deliver some food? On reflection, the answer is easy – this project has enriched and changed me.

Name someone who changed the path you were on.

Before I got involved in this project I knew nothing about food labelling and very little about food waste apart from the fact that I knew that it existed and I thought that it was a bad thing. Voytek and Hanna Radlowska, a founding member of Best Before Project, both combine vision with practical sense and lots of hard graft. This combination is rare and is has made it clear to me that there is plenty of room for change if you are armed with a good idea and the determination to see it become reality.

Where have you got to now? How far have you achieved your initial goals?

The project has grown from strength to strength in the past 18 months and I don’t think anyone one of us could have predicted how much interest it has attracted. We started out in a borrowed garage in Tottenham (which we still have), collecting food from suppliers known to Voytek and distributing it to local charities. Now through partnerships with Healthy Planet and Lambeth council we have three more storage units in different parts of London and we have prevented over 40 tonnes of food being sent to landfill.


Posted on October 30, 2012 by Francis Norton

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Glamorous World of Food Waste

In 2021 we’re reviving the Best Before Project blog and increasing our media presence and visibility to spread the word about our work. In order to do that however, there’s one important thing you should know about us, the target of our project - Reducing food waste. It’s not the most glamorous subject to learn about, but understanding food waste is key to understanding our goals and why we do what we do. The BBPs main goal is to educate the public on the misconceptions about best before dates and reduce the amount of food ending up in landfills. So many of us assume that when a piece of food reaches its best before date, it’s ‘gone off’ but the BBP aims to show that this isn’t the case and that there are many things to do with food that’s past its best before date. Together with many other charities and organisations, the Best Before Project aims ultimately to make a positive difference in people’s lives and the wider world, a goal that we’re sure many of you share.  As food waste...
Post a Comment
Read more

Aylward Academy young designers

 I attended Aylward Academy in Edmonton North London as a supply teacher.  I was asked to cover a Design & Technology class. The pupils did not want to do the work set by their teacher and wanted to just have a free lesson.  So I suggested to them and said Can you help me to design a website logo about anti-food waste?  I showed them your old website Home Page with one Big Green Circle....booooring!!!  :)  I said : Can you make me some great designs about not wasting food? I explained the Best Before does not mean Use By.  I asked them to draw anything of interest.  They said ok: They were Yr. 8 pupils between 12-13 years of age.  You can see from their designs how they understood perfectly that Best Before does not mean Use By. I asked them to check the Best Before date on any cans they had at home in their cupboard and not to throw it out if its just passed the date, but open and smell or taste it, to check their quality!  Yes, Mis...
Post a Comment
Read more