Do you Love Food Hate Waste?

Greater Manchester including Wigan are joining forces with WRAP’s (Waste & Resources Action Programme) Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) campaign to raise awareness of the need for all of us to reduce food waste.

Love Food Hate Waste is the ‘Waste Not Want Not’ of the modern day, providing handy tips, advice and recipes for leftovers to help everyone waste less food.

Around a third of all the food we buy ends up being thrown in the bin and most of this could have been eaten.

Reducing food waste is a major issue and not just about good food going to waste; wasting food costs the average family £420 a year and has serious environmental implications too.

Why does cutting food waste matter?

The vast majority of us already think throwing away good food is a dreadful waste. Hence the name of our campaign 'Love Food, Hate Waste'.

The amount of food we throw away is a waste of resources. Just think about all the energy, water and packaging used in food production, transportation and storage. This all goes to waste when we throw away perfectly good food.

Cheese is a good example - feeding and milking the cows, cooling and transporting the milk, processing it in to cheese, packing it, getting it to the shops, keeping it at the right temperature all the time. If it then gets thrown away it will most likely end up in a landfill site, where, rather than harmlessly decomposing as many people think, it rots and actually releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

If we stopped wasting food which could have been eaten, it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads. This could make a significant contribution to overall greenhouse gas emissions, and save us time and money. And as far as packaging is concerned, we actually throw away more food from our homes than packaging in the UK every year!

The best thing that can happen to food is that it makes it to our plates and is enjoyed. Avoiding throwing out food that could have been eaten will save you money and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. However some food waste is inevitable. Egg shells, banana skins and tea bags are never going to be on the menu. Home composting is a great way to stop this sort of waste ending up in landfill, and our gardens will really thank us for it. See www.recyclenow.com/home_composting  for all you need to know about home composting.

So how much food is thrown away?

6.7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year, or, to put it another way, around a third of all the food we buy ends up being thrown away, and most of it could have been eaten.

Some of the waste is made up of things like peelings, cores and bones, but the majority is, or once was, perfectly good food.

Current research suggests that about 40% of the food thrown away that could have been eaten is fresh fruit & vegetables. Meat and fish, bread and other bakery products, dairy produce and rice & pasta are all in the "top 5" most wasted foods.

The fact is that we throw away perfectly good food from all food groups. Whether it’s a couple of chicken breasts which have gone past their use by date, or the last few slices of bread which have gone stale or a chunk of cheese which has gone mouldy.

In fact every day in the UK we waste….

• Over 5 Million Whole Potatoes 
• 1 Million Loaves of bread
• Over 1 Million whole and untouched Sausages
• 520,000 Unused Teabags
• One million slices of ham;
• Over 4 million whole apples;
• Over 1 million yoghurts and yoghurt drinks; and
• 440,000 home-made and ready-made meals.
  

Why is there so much food waste? And how can I stop wasting it?

The most common reason for food being wasted is that it’s left unused – 61% of the food waste which is avoidable. Of this, 40% – almost one million tonnes – isn’t even touched and at least a tenth – 340,000 tonnes – is still in date. We also cook and prepare too much, resulting in an additional 1.6 million tonnes of food waste a year.

• Almost Over 50% of us make a list but half don’t stick to it! Planning your meals, and the shopping around those meals, can save you time, money and food! View the LFHW ready made meal plan recipes and shopping list here
  
  
• Half of us don’t understand food dates. Use-by is the key date in terms of safety - never eat products after this date and observe storage instructions. Check if the food can be frozen if you need to eat it at a later date.
  
  
• Best before dates refer to quality rather than safety. So, with these things, it's best to use your judgement. It should be safe to eat food after the 'best before' date, but food may no longer be at its best. One exception is eggs - never eat eggs after the best before date.
  
  
• Date marks such as 'display until' or 'sell by' often appear near or next to the 'best before' or 'use by' date. They are used by some shops to help with stock control and are instructions for shop staff, not shoppers.
  
  
• In fact 36% of us treat “best before” as “use-by” and 53% of us would never eat fruit & vegetables past the best before date.
  
  
• Many of us don’t store food as recommended. Never keep bread or bananas in the fridge – they go off much quicker!
   
  
• Keep the fridge at a cool 1 - 5 degrees and chilled food will stay fresh for longer. Our most perishable (and often most expensive) food is kept in the fridge, so keep tabs on their use-by dates - the freezer may be the option for food we won't get round to eating in time. Remember if you can’t get round to eating that cheese in time, just grate and pop into portion sized freezer bags for another day!
  
  
• 84% of us don’t even acknowledge that we throw much food away – try keeping a diary of the food you throw away over a week – it’s amazing how much it mounts up!

What are the supermarkets doing about this?

Most of the major supermarket retailers in the UK welcome the campaign and have committed to work with WRAP to identify ways they can help us, their customers, to reduce the amount of food thrown away. This might be through providing more information (recipes, how to store food better etc), the types of products sold (ranges of portion sizes, re-sealable packaging etc), the way food is sold (e.g. "half price" rather than "two for one" on food that goes off quickly) and so on.

How can I find out more?

• Billboards, Radio ads, adverts in your local paper and council newsletter, and Bus advertising will be going on around Greater Manchester over the next few months to raise awareness of the issue. Leaflets and recipe ideas will be available from Tameside council giving more information and advice. We will be running road shows and events in your local area – hope to see you there! We will also be putting up displays in the Tameside Council Tourist Information centre, and the Tameside Food and Drink Festival.

LFHW is sponsoring the Manchester Food and Drink Festival , 2009 and keep an eye out for us there!

Get Involved!

• Make economic use of all the odds and ends that invariably get leftover from previous meals or forgotten in the fruit bowl or the back of the fridge. Please give the LFHW recipes  a try and tell us if you like them! Why not share your favourite family recipes for rescuing fruit and vegetables; we'd love to hear from you!
  
  
• Why not make the most of your left-over food – there really is such a thing as a free lunch! The link below will provide you with ideas as well as help save you money! http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/about_food_waste/freelunching_1.html
  
  
• Love Food Hate Waste  provides delicious recipes to make the most of the food in our fruit bowl, fridge and cupboards, handy hints for storing food, surprising facts on what can be frozen and much more... there is something for everyone, whether you are a keen cook and organiser or more spontaneous.

Here are some Top Tips:

• Plan your meals and plan your shopping – This will save you time, money and food!
• Write a shopping list for your meal plan so you only buy what you really need.
• Keep essentials in the cupboard, fridge and freezer and keep an eye on a use by and best before dates.
• Use up leftovers and pull together a delicious meal by combining them with your favourite essentials. Here are some great recipes to use up your leftovers.
• Make sure your portion size is right and take at look at the online portion calculator 

For more great tips, recipes, food facts, portioning, storage and money-saving advice visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com 

There are many ways that you can join in with the campaign, look out for the LFHW advertisements and Road Shows (dates coming soon) and check if your local community or place of work have something planned or would like to be involved – just let us know! For more information on Greater Manchester including Wigan’s LFHW campaign, please visit www.recycleforgreatermanchester.com