Adam Smith

Why organisations work with Adam Smith

• The Real Junk Food Project is not a case study from a consultancy report. Smith built it from a single Leeds cafe in 2013 to a network of 120+ projects across seven countries, which makes his argument about the scalability of surplus redistribution operationally evidenced, not theoretical.
• The Pay As You Feel model challenges the assumption that pricing must track cost-price. For organisations navigating social value procurement, circular economy strategy, or food retail margins, that challenge is commercially relevant.
• Smith has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, which means his framing has direct policy credibility – useful for organisations managing regulatory and reputational exposure on ESG commitments.
• His current work at Surplus to Purpose, which diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023, keeps his insight current. He is not drawing on a legacy project.
• The Telegraph named him one of the 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink (Food & Drink Power List, 2017). His argument has been stress-tested in public, not just on stage.

Biography highlights

• Founded The Real Junk Food Project in Leeds in December 2013; the network grew to 120+ projects across seven countries within four years
• TEDx speaker at TEDxWarwick (2015): “Let’s REALLY Feed the World”
• Named one of 50 most influential people in UK Food & Drink, The Telegraph Food & Drink Power List (2017)
• FRSA (Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts)
• Gave parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste
• Yorkshire Awards 2025 Community Hero Award; Canal & River Trust Unsung Hero of Leeds (2022)
• CEO of Surplus to Purpose since 2022; appeared on Channel 4’s Inside the Superbrands
• Observer Food Monthly Awards runner-up across TRJFP projects in Birmingham, Manchester, and Leeds (2017, 2018)

Biography

The UK food industry wastes an estimated 9.5 million tonnes of food annually. Most of it is edible. In December 2013, Adam Smith opened a single cafe in Armley, Leeds, that served meals made entirely from intercepted surplus. He called the pricing model Pay As You Feel.

Within four years, that cafe had become a network of 120+ projects operating across seven countries. The model did not succeed because it was charitable. It succeeded because it demonstrated a functional alternative to the assumption that surplus has no commercial value – and that communities, schools, and organisations could participate in redistribution at scale without requiring philanthropy as a precondition.

Smith stepped back from The Real Junk Food Project in 2019 and, in 2022, took on the leadership of Surplus to Purpose – a social enterprise built on the same structural argument but with a more explicit focus on the environmental costs of food waste in the supply chain. Surplus to Purpose diverted 506 tonnes of food in 2023. He has given parliamentary evidence to an All-Party Parliamentary Group on food waste, and The Telegraph placed him on its Food & Drink Power List in 2017 as one of the 50 most influential people in the sector.

The TEDxWarwick talk from 2015 covers the core argument clearly. Food waste is a corporate supply chain decision, not a consumer behaviour problem. The organisations with the most leverage to change it are the ones that benefit most from not changing it.

Key speaking topics

• Surplus food redistribution and supply chain waste
• Pay As You Feel and alternative pricing models
• Purpose-led business model design
• Social enterprise at scale
• ESG and food system accountability
• Corporate responsibility in the food supply chain

Ideal for

• Chief Sustainability Officers and ESG leads in food retail, hospitality, and manufacturing
• Procurement and supply chain leadership in organisations with food or FMCG exposure
• Strategy and transformation teams working on circular economy frameworks
• Social value and impact leads in public sector and corporate foundations

Audience outcomes

• A working model for how surplus redistribution operates at scale – not a concept, but a documented case with known failure points and operational evidence
• A concrete example of how pricing can be decoupled from cost-price to deliver both social value and commercial viability
• Clarity on where corporate supply chains generate waste and why existing incentive structures keep that waste in place
• A framework for distinguishing between ESG commitments that reduce reputational risk and changes that alter the underlying supply chain economics