Via Facebook

Nicked, knurled, and otherwise misshapen vegetables make for just as tasty of a meal as the flawless ones, and a British non-profit will feed 5,000 people in downtown D.C. next week to prove it.

Feedback’s signature event, Feeding the 5000, is a massive, educational lunch sourced from produce that would otherwise go to waste—either because it doesn’t meet a strict cosmetic standard or is a scrap that wouldn’t be utilized. After organizing events largely in Europe, Feedback held a feast in New York City on Tuesday. From tents in Union Square, they dished out ratatouille and an egg torte alongside culinary demonstrations like how to make a burger out of juice pulp and cocktails out of whey.

On May 18, they are posting up at Woodrow Wilson Plaza for a similar event, with demonstrations and talks starting at 11 a.m. Lunch will be ladled out beginning at 12 p.m.

But first they need to acquire thousands of pounds of vegetables. There’s plenty out there to save from the garbage bins, though. Feedback cites a 2011 report from the UN Food and Agriculture Organization that suggests that “roughly one-third of the edible parts of food produced for human consumption, gets lost or wasted globally, which is about 1.3 billion ton per year.”

For the D.C. feast, distributor BaldorFood is donating 900 pounds of veggie “sparCs” (oddly shaped parts that are usually thrown away) and D.C. Central Kitchen has sourced about double that in produce. “It is all really good quality, really great food. Nothing is wrong with it other than random cosmetic choices and the fact that people are throwing away useful food scraps,” says Arienne Johnson McShane, the local coordinator for Feeding the 5000.

A group of Campus Kitchens Project volunteers will spend six hours helping chop everything up the day before the event, and then D.C. Central Kitchen’s chefs face the monumental task of cooking it all into a curry dish for the masses.

“So much of what this process is about is making do with what you get,” Johnson says. “The cooks are all really excited about the challenges. The chefs are getting thrown things at them that they don’t know in advance.”

Feedback and DC Central Kitchen are also getting some support from local celebrichefs Spike Mendelsohn and José Andrés. In addition to the main curry dish, Andrés and his team are whipping up a massive paella—to the tune of about 600 portions—using the donated veggies.

Anyone and everyone is welcome to share in the meal.

In conjunction with the event, Feedback is advocating for supermarkets and manufacturers to: come up with a single labeling system (they argue “best if used by”, “sell by,” “expires on,” and others often lead to perfectly good produce getting thrown away); loosen cosmetic standards and start selling “ugly” fruits and vegetables; report how much food is currently wasted; and make surplus items available to organizations.

Feeding the 5000 will take place on May 18 at the Woodrow Wilson Plaza at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center from 11 a.m. – 4 p.m.