Rebecca Fox talks to Revival Foods' Victoria Madison.
Necessity may have driven Victoria Madison to look differently at her food waste but passion has driven her to make it a living.
Madison has become a regular at the Otago Farmers Market, selling various sustainable food products made from waste food.
"Part of me is surprised at the interest in it, as it's just what I do at home.''
Recently her business has taken another step, with her waste crackers and biscuits being laboratory tested so they can then go on to retail shelves.
Now that her home kitchen is a registered commercial kitchen, she has plenty of scope to experiment and produce a variety of products from waste.
She has a batch of vinegar "mothers'' brewing made from the short-fill beer Emerson's Brewery cannot use, with the aim of creating a product that can be served alongside food at brewery restaurants.
She has even reused her children's thermal tops to keep the vinegar at the right temperature.
Another project she is working on involves using spent grain to create a range of beer snacks to match the range of beers sold at Emerson's.
She is known for her popular caramel slice made with coffee chaff, ricotta made from Evansdale Cheese's whey and crackers made from spent grain.
"Some foods have up to 75% waste product in them.''
However, for the former Otago Polytechnic food design student it all started when she had to find a project for her final year and was drawn to the issue of food waste.
Madison soon saw the business potential in using commercial food waste in food products and secured a spot at the farmers market.
"One reason it goes so well is it's interesting.''
She was a single mother and a student then, so being creative with what food she had and reducing waste had become second nature, a fact she credits her upbringing for.
She and her sisters learnt the basic skills of cooking and preserving, making their own lunches and cooking dinner one night a week.
"This is normal and natural for me. In part it came from a place of necessity but I love playing with food, experimenting and pushing the boundaries.''
She described her food as "very rustic'', simple and recognisable, and hoped one day to be able to drop the word waste from her food as it became the "norm'' to use those products.
It could be a bit hit and miss.
Some experiments ended up being ground up in dog biscuits or fed to the seagulls.
Madison is also very passionate about assisting women in Samoa to develop their own businesses by helping them produce a banana vinegar.
All the extra projects meant she was having to look at alternative ways of funding.
