Diners at a food van were treated to a royal surprise when they were served veggie burgers by none other than the Prince of Wales.
Prince William gave meals to “shell-shocked” diners in central London to help raise awareness of environmentally friendly winners of the Earthshot Prize.
The future king invited the team behind popular YouTube channel Sorted Food to create, cook and distribute Earthshot burgers using products using products made by three prize winners from 2022.
Ingredients for the burgers were grown in a “greenhouse-in-a-box” created by a company called Kheyti in India, and cooked in a Mukuru clean stove, designed in Kenya to reduce air pollution. They were served in Notpla biodegradable cartons, created in London.
“Morning everyone – nicely cooked, ready to go,” said “Chef” Prince William as he turned round to reveal himself in the van to shocked diners.
“So, for those of you who don’t know, the Earthshot Prize is there to repair and regenerate the planet,” he said. “Everything you see here comes from the winners from last year. So 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.
“The ingredients inside the burger are grown from a greenhouse in India from a company called Kheyti, and last but not least the way we cook them has been on a thing called Mukuru clean stoves, and that is designed by a lady in Kenya who came up with the concept to reduce air pollution.”
The chefs created a potato-based spicy burger flavoured with garlic, ginger and chilli – with pickled vegetables, served in a bun.
“My brain took three seconds to buffer,” said one of the diners, about seeing Prince William behind the counter. “Am I dreaming? Have I had enough sleep?”
“I was lost for words,” said another.
Prince William visited Notpla co-founders Rodrigo Garcia Gonzalez (left) and Pierre Paslier earlier in 2023
The video begins with Prince William arriving at the Sorted Food studio to drop off the items produced by some of the 2022 Earthshot Prize winners.
Jamie Spafford, co-founder of Sorted Food – known for promoting environmentally friendly food solutions – 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.”
Read more:
The five £1m 2022 Earthshot Prize winners
‘We put man on the moon – we can repair our planet’
Prince William does science experiment at start-up visit
Founded by Prince William and The Royal Foundation in 2020, The Earthshot Prize is a global environmental prize to “discover, accelerate and scale ground-breaking solutions to repair and regenerate the planet”.
There are five categories looking at nature, air, oceans, waste and climate, and the first winners were announced in 2021, each receiving £1m to scale up their pioneering projects.