Award-Winning Chef Joins Mission to Cut Food Waste
An award-winning chef is to create a sumptuous three-course meal using locally sourced surplus foods as part of a Dundee charity campaign to cut food waste.
Coinciding with Signpost International’s six-week spring fundraising campaign, ‘Don’t Dump It, Dish It’, Arbroath-born Personal Chef Adam Newth is to demonstrate and cook a culinary masterpiece from donated and locally sourced fruit, veg, meat and tinned/frozen produce.

Adam Newth – image supplied.
As well as demonstrating the potential of surplus food, the event will raise funds to triple the charity’s operations this year, allowing chefs to cook and distribute 1,200 to 1,500 meals across Dundee from surplus food each week.
As well as preventing around 23.5 tonnes of food from being wasted, this will also save almost 60 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.
The event will be held at Signpost International’s premises at The Roundhouse, Dundee on Sunday 16 March 2025.
With demonstrations and practical tips, Adam will use food supplied by Grewar’s Farm, Muirhead and FareShare, who donate surplus food to Signpost International each week.
Guests will also explore what the charity does at home and worldwide to ensure people have enough good food to eat, with ticket proceeds supporting Signpost’s ongoing projects.

Adam Newth – image supplied.
Jamie Morrison, Chief Executive of Signpost International said, “It’s estimated that one-fifth of all food produced for human consumption is wasted every year, an incredible 1.3bn tonnes (26,000 tonnes from Dundee alone). And yet at the same time, almost 10% of the global population, 732 million people, go hungry every day, with 40% of this figure facing acute levels of hunger. While this is abhorrent, we have the power to change this through education and a bit of creativity.
“If instead of this food going to waste, it was able to get to those who needed it, each hungry person could receive 2,536 meals per year (seven meals a day!) Global hunger isn’t about a lack of food; it is complex, but there is enough food to go around if we only put our minds to it, think out of the box, and work together.”
Adam, who has worked in various Michelin-star restaurants throughout this 18-year career, added, “As a Personal Chef, I am often cooking for privileged, high net-worth clients.
“However, because of my roots, I’m acutely aware that countless local families rely on foodbanks to stay afloat, with some struggling to heat their homes or switch their oven on. Signpost International are doing some incredible work, so I jumped at the chance to host this event, which will raise much-needed funds to keep their activities going, including the amazing work they’re doing with families in their communities.”
Cooking with the food available on the day, Adam hopes to prove that surplus food can be transformed into delicious and imaginative dishes, adding, “There’s a definite snobbery around frozen food, which is bizarre as we’ve been freezing food since the beginning of time. People think of frozen food as convenience food, but there’s so much high-quality frozen food out there, and much of it is more nutritious than the fresh version. Similarly, with canned and tinned produce, whether tinned tomatoes, lazy garlic or chickpeas, you can minimise waste, bulk foods out and keep things affordable.
“I’ll also show how you can make the most of a piece of meat. People often view a roast chicken as a meal for one day but you can make the skin into crisps fried with chicken fat, make a broth from the bone and save the drumsticks for a midweek lunch. It’s about making the food go further and using or freezing parts of what you might not need that day for use later.
“And, as much as we seek to educate everyday families with their kids at home, there’s a whole other issue here around how chefs are taught at college. So many chefs aren’t taught about waste and then, when they arrive in a commercial kitchen, they’re binning what could be used for something else, so this is a much wider issue than family food waste.”
To book a ticket for the event, visit https://tinyurl.com/mw7c7ark
For more information about Signpost International, visit https://www.signpost-international.org/
ENDS