Great British Waste Menu, BBC 1

"From supermarkets to our own kitchens, Britons have moved on from the 'waste not, want not' mantra of old, and now, as a country, we squander tons of perfectly edible food every year.  In response, four of the nation's top chefs embark on a mission to show how our scraps can be transformed into delicious dishes by preparing a banquet for 60 VIPs using food previously thrown away.  Before their recycled dishes make it to the table, however, they must meet the exacting standards of food critics Jay Rayner, Oliver Peyton, Prue Leith and Matthew Fort." (Mail on Sunday August 22 2010)

Watch the program here on bbc iplayer -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00tkr88/Great_British_Waste_Menu/

Previous series have seen the Great British menu chefs compete to cook for the Queen, ambassadors from around the world, and war veterans.


But now, the programme takes a twist as they create gastronomic delights from leftovers.
Four of the nation's top chefs, and Great British Menu veterans, Angela Hartnett, Richard Corrigan, Matt Tebbutt and Simon Rimmer journey deep into the heart of Britain's food waste problem, exploring how and why the nation throws away and reject huge quantities of perfectly edible food.

Cameras follow the chefs as they source shocking amounts of unwanted food from every link in the food chain - from supermarkets to ordinary homes, markets to farms - and then transform it into mouth-watering dishes.

And it's surprisingly fascinating as the chefs visit farmers who regularly discard tomatoes that aren't perfectly red and round; dairy producers who throw away perfectly good cheese and milk if the packaging is slightly damaged; and butchers who waste an extraordinary amount of perfectly edible meat on a daily basis. It all amounts to a tragic waste.

The chefs face a unique and near-impossible task: can they create a fabulous banquet for over 60 VIPs using the food that the rest of us don't want? Can they create restaurant-standard food using ingredients that have been discarded, rejected or deemed unsuitable for sale? Will they be able to change the way Britons think about waste food?

The Great British menu's usual line up of tough food critics - Matthew Fort, Prue Leith and Oliver Peyton, are joined by Jay Rayner to decide which dishes go onto the menu for the lavish banquet designed to prove that saving scraps is good.

As the chefs source their ingredients and the banquet unfolds, the solution to the scandalous food waste crisis reveals itself to be a simple one: just eat it.

http://tv.sky.com/great-british-waste-menu-review