A COUPLE who manufacture vegan products from food waste want to provide holiday accommodation on a bus.

Madi Myers and partner Arthur Serini established their food fermenting business, Crafty Pickle, after meeting at university in Aberdeen and now employ a small part time workforce manufacturing sauerkrauts and kimchis, a Korean vegetable dish, at a farm at Crick, near Caldicot.

They use food collected by charity Fareshare Cardiff which aims to prevent surplus food going to waste either by redistributing it to those who can use it for meals or other uses.

Madi and Arthur have also for the past four years run workshops at their manufacturing base, at Bentley Green Farm, to teach others how to take vegetables that they might otherwise throw away and convert them into a healthy live fermented food.

Arthur, who is originally from North Carolina in the United States, said fermenting describes the “transformation process by microbes” of preserving, or producing, food.

“The simple explanation a lot people know is milk into yogurt or milk into cheese or grain into bread or beer,” said Arthur: “All these sort of foods have a fermenting process and our process is no different other than we use vegetables and the microbes remain alive and active which is the appeal of these types of food.”

They now want to provide accommodation for people from further afield to attend the courses by using a bus on land, owned by Madi’s parents, at Llanfair Discoed, near Caerwent.

Madi’s father, Andrew Myers, has applied to Monmouthshire County Council for change of use planning permission to use the land for short term holiday letting using a converted bus.

The single decker bus is already on site, a field owned by Mr Myers, and only visible from the private farmland surrounding it and has been used by family members on an “ad hoc” basis.

According to the application use as holiday accommodation would be limited to approximately 50 nights a year and wouldn’t involve the creation of a permanent dwelling or residential unit.

No more than two visitors at a time are expected as the bus only has one double bed and power is supplied from solar panels that power Mr Myers’ home on site where Madie and Arthur also live.

It is intended as a low-impact development and reversable, as the bus can be moved, and no foundations or permanent hardstanding are planned or features such as decking or patios or external lighting or signage and branding.

The site is outside of the development boundary and in the open countryside and the application is being considered by council planners with members of the public having until Friday, March 6 to comment.