Salvage Supperclub is Changing How New Yorkers See Food, One Dumpster at a Time

A few times a year, New Yorkers may come across a dinner party inside a dumpster. While at first glance, it may seem like yet another “hipster” pop-up, the Salvage Supperclub is far from that. It’s a dinner series with a mission: to change the way people see food waste. Using expired and imperfect foods donated from local farms, restaurants and food co-ops, a gourmet multi-course meal is created by a chef and the proceeds are donated to food-related non-profits like City Harvest and Culinary Corps. The next dinner is tomorrow, but since it’s winter it won’t be on the street in a dumpster. Instead, the dinner is taking place at Ascent Contemporary Projects, a gallery in Tribeca. There will also be a panel discussion. Tickets for the event are here and there are just three left.

Photo by Andrew Hinderaker

Founder Joshua Treuhaft started the supperclub as a project for his masters thesis at the Design for Social Innovation program at the School of Visual Arts here in New York City. He started first tackling how to get more residents to compost but he realized he needed to target a more exciting stage of the food chain to get traction–finding a way to make trash look beautiful. Joshua hopes that the Salvage Supperclub will change the way people shop, look at food and increase their knowledge of the life-cycle of the products we consume. Just because the official expiration date has passed or because fruit is bruised doesn’t mean it’s not edible–and the supperclub can teach you how to make the call.

Photo by Tanya Bhandari

The dinners are currently cooked by chef Celia Lam of the National Gourmet Institute, an early partner in the Salvage Supperclub. Joshua pitched them the idea while in school with renderings and they immediately identified with it. With the constraints of using discarded foods, the menu planning can be tricky. It takes about around seven to ten days before the dinners to gather the raw ingredients and preserving them using different (safe) methods if needed.

Photo by Tanya Bhandari

The Salvage Supperclub deliberately has no website but you can email salvagesupperclub@gmail.com to sign up for dinner announcements, which take place every three to four months. Get the last couple tickets to tomorrow’s dinner here.