About to toss leftover food in the bin? This Instagram account will change the way you think about the consequence of food waste

Following two high profile London launches last week, one of The Evening Standard’s Food Month which runs throughout June, and the second the launch of Dan Barber’s wastED pop-up on Selfridges rooftop, here we look at what North Londoner Chris King is producing on the subject of food waste.

Who: ‘Food Is… Wasted’ is an online magazine run by photographer and former activist Chris King, dedicated to covering food waste through a series of interviews, films, blog posts, podcasts and pictures.

Number of followers: 3.7k

Tagline: ‘Raising awareness about food waste by visually documenting the causes, the impact & the solutions. Find out about people fighting food waste.’

Featured food: Portraits of volunteers from The Gleaning Network; volunteer James from the pay-as-you-feel Save The Date cafe in Bethnal Green; chickens at Stepney City Farm in London feeding on leftover pig fodder; 2.5 tonnes of parsnips at a farm in Norfolk; or a portrait of the co-founder of Olio, an app connecting leftover food and local neighbours.

Why we should follow it: Not only are there beautiful portraits and snapshots, but the feed - and the website - is a fantastic resource for anyone wanting to keep up-to-date on the subject.

Takes pics with: A combination of an iPhone and King’s standard DSLR camera, a Nikon D800.

First post: An image of volunteers chopping up tomatoes at an event in 2015 called Disco Soup held at Dalston Roof Park, which involved cooking up food that would otherwise have gone to waste, followed by music and dancing. “It was less about raising awareness, and more about having a social event where you could use up [this] food - and doing it in a fun way,” says King.

Most popular post(s): The best in terms of engagement, comments and likes, he explains, has been one that he took of This Is Rubbish, “in which they filled a skip with food that would otherwise have gone to waste, and brought it to the HQs of Tesco and Sainsbury’s. Generally it’s the more sensational pictures that focus on food, or single person portraits, that do well.”

How Food Is… came about: “I’ve been involved in environmental and social justice-related things for many years in some capacity or other, but I wanted to explore [an under reported issue that was on my doorstep] photographically to try and raise awareness of it. When I started exploring it in September 2013, I was quite shocked by [how little media coverage there was on it] because of the potential to impact all the issues of our time in such a signficant way… there are also no barriers to participation - you don’t need any niche knowledge or tools to make it necessary to help reduce food waste.”

How has Food Is… developed since then? Having started as a photographic project, King then created video footage and multi-media pieces about Food Cycle [the charity that combines surplas food, spare kitchen spaces and volunteers to create three-course meals for people at risk of food poverty] - after which things became more journalistic. King started “connecting with organisations within London, keeping it on the doorstep, and then I took it beyond to London to various UK farms, where there is a huge amount of visible food waste. Now I’m exploring beyond the UK, and I’m engaging with organisations across Europe, most recently in the US as well.” Using a set-up on Twitter called Crowdfire, automatic thank you messages go out to people who follow him, suggesting they get in touch if they want to share their story. This, he says, has been “very successful for connecting with people, which might then lead to a written interview or an audio inteview via Skype.”

Look out for: King will be continuing his new podcast series, running more short videos, and starting a new moving image series, blending video and animation.

Info: Follow it on Instagram @foodiswasted or find more information at foodis.org.uk

Follow Victoria Stewart on Twitter @vicstewart