Adam Smith Speaker | Lifestyle & New Speakers & Mental Health & Leadership

Adam Smith FRSA

Meet Adam Smith, Founder & CEO of Surplus to Purpose and also known for The Real Junk Food Project

Adam Smith is the CEO of Surplus To Purpose, SToP, a revolutionary catering enterprise. Surplus to Purpose utilises food destined for waste, by safely redistributing this through cooked meals, products and provisions to families. It focuses on the environmental issues of food waste, which measures its impact on climate change within the food industry.

For the whole academic year of 2022/23, SToP in association with Thomas Franks diverted nearly 16 tons of surplus food into the bellies of children - providing nutritionally dense, quality meals made from waste!They have dozens of schools lined up nationally to start receiving this food through this collaboration, feeding thousands of children and stopping so much food from being wasted.Overall, Surplus to Purpose diverted 322 tons of food in 2022 - equivalent to 767,000 meals and then went on to divert 506 tons of food in 2023, which is the equivalent of 1.2 million meals!

Adam Smith also founded the visionary, multi-award-winning, global initiative: The Real Junk Food Project (TRJFP). Set up in December 2013, to revolutionise the disposal of avoidable food waste into landfill, the pioneering movement's manifesto is to: feed bellies, not bins.

A professional chef for over ten years, Adam has held a wealth of head chef positions, internationally. Whilst in Australia, Adam witnessed the scale of food waste, agriculturally and within the catering industry. Upon his return to the UK, he was inspired to set up TRJFP.

Adam has received numerous plaudits and awards from organisations ranging from NESTA to The Observer. He was voted one of the forty most influential men in the world by AskMen. In addition The Telegraph voted Adam as one of the 50th most influential people in UK Food & Drink – Food & Drink Power List. Adam was honoured with an Unsung Hero award presented by the Canal & River Trust in 2022.The award celebrates those who have made a positive impact in their community.

Adam is currently writing a book due for publication next year. His alias is Mr Junk Food Chef and he has been a featured speaker on a truly memorable TedX talk.His story is utterly inspiring.

Key presentation themes include:

Sustainability, environment and waste management
Overcoming adversity & mental health
Leadership, teamwork and motivation
Change and change management
Corporate social responsibility
Project management

Testimonials from Teachers

“Adam was great - the students really enjoyed the session. I will no doubt be back in touch at some point, as we'd love to have Adam back again.”

– Catherine Yeo, Leadership, Management & Lifestyle Curriculum Manager Blackpool & Fylde College 2024

“Adam’s presentation was great – a few people commented to me after the fact that they found it very interesting, and I could tell that the audience were very engaged while he was speaking.He came across very well”

– Rachael Nixon, Credit Decisioning SAS Analyst, Leeds Building Society 2024

“Thanks so much for checking in. The talk was wonderful and inspiring. It sparked a really great conversation and I got really good feedback from the team. I'll definitely be recommending Adam to other organisations should they be looking for a speaker. Thank you again!”

– Tash Bristowe, SME Sales & Culture Manager, Sanctus – online speech

“Thank you for your inspiring and motivating presentation given today to the YH Healthier and Resilient Food Systems Network members and other delegates. You really brought together what could be achieved at an individual and systems level and although gave no illusions as to how challenging this work can be really gave the delegates ideas and inspiration to take away with them as they progress this work.”

– Nicola Corrigan, HWB Programme Lead, Department of Health