Twenty-nine tonnes (29,000kg) of carrots have been dumped outside a London university as part of a "very bizarre" art installation, according to students.
The project, named 'Grounding', was the brainchild on Spanish-Welsh artist Rafael Perez Evans in a bid to highlight food wastage.
A large truck deposited the carrots outside the Ben Pimlott building at Goldsmiths - a constituent college of the University of London - in New Cross on Tuesday (local time).
The artist has since reassured the public that the vegetables, collected as supermarket rejects, will eventually be used as animal feed.
The artwork has drawn mixed responses from students, with some taking the carrots home as a free addition to their grocery shop.
Musical theatre student Eden Groualle told Sky News she thought the project was "very bizarre", but acknowledged it wasn't out of place at the school, which specialises in the arts, design, humanities and social sciences.
"All that was left was to understand what it meant," she said.
According to Perez Evans' website, the artwork explores "the tensions in visibility between the rural and the city" and was inspired by European farmers dumping produce in protest.
"The therapeutic technique of grounding involves doing activities that 'ground' or electrically reconnect you to the earth," he explained.
Other students said they were uncomfortable with the dumping of so much edible food, despite Perez Evans' disclaimer that the produce had been rejected by local supermarkets.
"Even though the carrots are being donated to farm animals at the end of the piece, it's still slightly problematic given the poverty, food shortages and homelessness in Lewisham," said student Lester Langford.
Josie Power told Sky News she was conflicted by the "surreal" artwork.
"It was something so fun and bizarre to go and see... but also it's hard not to acknowledge the glaring problems with food wastage," the 20-year-old said.
"However, this food was likely to be wasted anyway... so by using them for this project people are suddenly thinking about food wastage and the amount that doesn't make it to supermarkets to be sold."
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, food waste is estimated at between 30 to 40 percent of the food supply in the US.
Researchers for New Zealand's Love Food Hate Waste campaign found Kiwi households throw away 157,389 tonnes of food each year - the equivalent of 271 jumbo jets full of food. Our annual wastage is worth around $1.17 billion, according to the campaign.
