A PIONEERING cafe will offer hot meals to hungry vulnerable and homeless people while hoping to reduce needless food waste.

Yourcafe, based in Tang Hall Community Centre in York, serves food donated by local businesses which would otherwise be thrown away.

Figures produced by the Waste and Action Resources Programme (Wrap) revealed up to 15 million tonnes of food is wasted every year in the UK at a cost of at least £19billion.

At the same time, local authorities have spent nearly £3 million over the last two years to help with food poverty.

However, the cafe hopes to combat this by offering quality meals to anyone.

People who use the cafe will be asked to pay as much or as little as they like for whatever is on offer.

Rita Faria, a Yourcafe volunteer, said: "Yourcafe is completely run by volunteers.

"Our objective is to reduce food waste and help social isolation whilst providing a tasty meal in the heart of the community.

"We receive food that would otherwise go to waste from local businesses, turn it into delicious meals and serve it to the community on a pay-as-you-feel basis.

"Pay-as-you-feel means that customers pay for their meal as little or as much as they like, either in money or by volunteering their time and skills to the project."

The cafe opened for the first time on Wednesday and will initially run for a trial period of six weeks.

It is hoped in that time enough supporters will come forward from businesses and traders to keep the cafe running for the foreseeable future.

Yourcafe is inspired by the Real Junk Food Project that started in Leeds.

By December 2014, the West Yorkshire cafe had fed more than 10,000 people using 20 tonnes of unwanted food that would otherwise have gone to waste.