Forty percent of all food grown or produced in the U.S. does not get eaten. Really. This fact is a startling one that doesn't seem to hit home for many of us, so a pop-up dining experience called Salvage Supperclub has found a way to get this startling food waste message to stick—they're serving dinner in a dumpster.
Not only is Salvage supper served in an actual dumpster dining room (cleaned out and retrofitted with a lovely table setting), but all of the food served at Salvage Supperclub's $125 dinners is artfully created from food that would have gone to waste otherwise.
"The idea behind this multicourse, veg-forward tasting menu is for eaters to see the incredible potential many of us fail to see in our food," industrial designer and Salvage Supperclub founder Josh Treuhaft told Edible San Francisco. Treuhaft has thrown dumpster dinners in New York, Berkeley and now—along with chef Pesha Perlsweig—in San Francisco's own industrial gem of SoMa.
"I want to engage people and get them excited about food waste prevention so we send less food to the landfill or compost," Treuhaft explained to Edible. "The goal here is to broaden the scope of what is edible."
The goal of Salvage Supperclub is also to eat an impressive meal of less-than-impressive ingredients. Dishes at a recent San Francisco pop-up included "wilted basil, bruised plums, past-their-prime tomatoes, vegetable pulp, surplus squash, whole favas (we’re talking even the tough outer layer), garbanzo bean water, dairy whey, sweet potato skins and overripe, peel-on bananas."
Edible described their dumpster meal of salvaged food as "finger-lickin' good."
Mission District Perlsweig created culinary magic with the (totally safe to eat) ingredients, ultimately presenting dumpster diners with a six-course eating and educational experience. Twenty-five percent of proceeds from local Salvage Supperclub dinners went to FoodRunners, the non-profit founded by San Francisco's own Mary Risley that saves leftover food from restaurants and caterers and delivers it to those in need.
"I hope my guests come away from my dinners with a new outlook on how they’re using and not using the food in their kitchens," Perlsweig told Edible. "Change is hard. If I can move the dial, however small, in the right direction, then I feel like I’ve done my job."
According to Salvage Supperclub's Eventbrite page, both San Francisco dinners have ended. However Treufaft's dumpster dining concept has garnered so much buzz—and not the kind that comes from garbage flies —that we expect to see additional Salvage Supperclub pop-up dinners in the near future. Anyone curious about digging in to dumpster cuisine (including us!) can stay connected by following the Salvage Supperclub Facebook page.