// BBC BUSINESS NEWS — FINANZA
Group's mission to appreciate every piece of food
Devon farmer Lloyd Stone donates food such as courgettes to Food in Community
An organisation that rescues hundreds of tonnes of surplus food from going to waste wants to expand its work.
Food in Community, a Dartington-based community interest company, has been collecting unwanted and extra crops from local growers and farmers for 14 years in a bid to reduce waste and improve access to sustainably produced food.
The food is packed into boxes for free doorstep deliveries to people, with any leftover produce given to food banks, community fridges, lunch clubs and youth groups.
The group, who work mainly in Devon but also send items to Cornwall, said it wanted to work with more farmers, volunteers and business partners in a bid to save more food.
Chantelle Norton, a director at Food in Community, said research done by World Wide Fund for Nature and Tesco in 2022, external estimated 2.9m tonnes of edible food is lost or wasted annually every year on UK farms.
Chantelle Norton said appreciating produce helped more than the people who end up eating it
Norton said: "What's important is making the most of the resources we've got.
"We value not just the food itself and the nutrition it brings, but also the farmer's time, the water that goes into producing that crop and the care everyone puts into it.
"It's important to appreciate every last piece of edible food that is grown."