In July, customers at a food truck in South London were astounded to find Prince William serving up their veggie burgers, Sky News reports.
In the past few years, the future king and Prince of Wales has taken an interest in the future of the planet. Alongside The Royal Foundation, Prince William founded the Earthshot Prize in 2020. The global competition is intended to run through 2030 to "discover, accelerate, and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet" over the course of the decade.
To achieve that ambitious goal, the Earthshot Prize awards 1 million pounds (more than $1,270,000) to innovators in five fields: nature, air, oceans, waste, and climate.
Prince William's food truck appearance was intended to showcase three of last year's Earthshot winners, Sky News reports. During the event, he presented three eco-friendly products to the crowd.
The first was a biodegradable, non-plastic food carton. "The box you're about to eat in is built [by] a company called Notpla, and there's no plastic involved; they've come up with a seaweed coating," Prince William explained.
"The ingredients inside the burger are grown from a greenhouse in India from a company called Kheyti," he continued. According to Sky News, Indian company Kheyti has developed an innovative "greenhouse-in-a-box" to grow potatoes, garlic, ginger, chili, and other vegetables, which the chefs assembled into a spicy potato burger.
"Last but not least the way we cook them has been on a thing called Mukuru clean stoves," said Prince William. "That is designed by a lady in Kenya who came up with the concept to reduce air pollution."
This multifaceted approach to the planet's problems is sorely needed. The Kheyti greenhouse is a simple answer to widespread hunger in many parts of the globe, while Notpla's efforts will reduce plastic pollution in our oceans, including microplastics. Finally, clean stoves like the Mukuru model that burn fuel more efficiently will help lower the production of heat-trapping gas that warms up the planet.
Environmentally friendly YouTube channel Sorted Food was chosen to help with creating and distributing veggie burgers using these Earthshot Prize–winning materials. In a press release about the event, Sorted Food co-founder Jamie Spafford said, "Being joined at our studio and in the food truck by Prince William was a real 'pinch me' moment. Hearing him explain how passionate he is about helping the planet and what the Earthshot Prize is doing was incredibly inspiring, and has already given us a lot of ideas for future projects to work on with our community."
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