Run as a collaboration between Café Recharge co-founders Amanda Robinson and Amy Wight and Caroline Timmins, a product development technologist at Queen Margaret University, the Rescue. Preserve. Nourish: Turning Surplus into Sustenance project aims to investigate waste reduction through pilot dehydration trials using surplus vegetables and fruit.

Café Recharge operates in Galashiels as a community hub and “pay what you can afford” Café. The food they serve is surplus and predominantly rescued from supermarkets. Use By and Best Before dates are observed and managed by freezing the food or cooking before the Use By ends.

Through this project, the researchers hope to reduce food waste further by investigating food dehydration. They aim to understand the efficiency of dehydration, build a framework for the process, formulate a calendar to track rescued surplus food, and facilitate community “chat and chop” events to prepare surplus produce in readiness for dehydration. The group’s ambition is to educate and enable clients to make healthy, tasty meals by producing recipe cards and videos for using dehydrated produce.

Caroline Timmins said, “The team from Café Recharge CIC and the Scottish Centre for Food Development and Innovation at Queen Margaret University are delighted to secure this award, which will allow us to investigate ways of preparing and utilising surplus fruit and vegetables by experimenting with dehydration and creating new food products and recipes. Support from the Royal Society of Edinburgh not only allows us to pursue efficiencies and innovation in food management, it helps us progress our mission of reducing food waste and promoting sustainability in the community.”