Foreword from Dr. Paul Beers – Head of Sustainability
Food loss and waste is a global problem that produces around 7% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. The UN estimates that 30% of agricultural land is used to produce food that is never consumed. Tackling food loss and waste will lessen hunger around the world. Target 12.3 in the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for halving the per capita global food waste at both retail and consumer levels and a reduction in food loss during production and associated supply chains.
Food loss and waste is produced at every stage from farm to fork. Food loss can be due to inadequate harvesting, poor storage and logistics. In retail, the consumers desire for food of a specific shape, size and colour can also lead to food loss.
Food waste in the home is mainly due to over purchasing, poor meal planning and inappropriate storage.
In the UK we throw away 6.6. million tonnes of food a year, around three quarters of this is food that can be eaten.
Thankfully, there is a lot happening here in the UK to reduce food waste. In this Focus Week we highlight the importance of reducing our food waste with our Food Waste partner, Olio, and we will look into composting with Compostable Kate.
Who are they?WRAP, is a climate action, non-governmental organisation that works globally in over 40 countries. The NGO works towards tackling climate change to help the world to have a sustainable future. Part of this work was to introduce the international climate...
Date LabelsThere are two dates on food products that are relevant to the customer, and these are the ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates. Other dates on the packaging, including the ‘display until’ date, are only relevant to those that stock the food. See below the...
Supermarkets are one of the leading causes of food waste in the UK, yearly supermarkets throw away the equivalent of roughly 190,000 meals of edible food. With 14 million people living below the poverty line, and many of these people facing hunger, this amount of food...
What foods can we freeze? Fruit Vegetables Bread Milk Eggs Stock Grated cheese Raw meat Cooked meat Flour Butter Cooked pasta Cooked rice Herbs How to fill your freezerFirstly, make sure your freezer is set at 0°F or -18°C. Make sure that raw foods that need to be...
Children, and adults, can be very fussy when it comes to what they eat, this can produce a large amount of food waste, as uneaten meals get thrown into the bin. As children grow, they should be able to try a number of different foods, but this doesn’t mean they are...
One of the best ways to prevent food waste in your home is to plan your meals. This means that you know exactly what you are eating each week. Not only does this stop you from buying unwanted food, it will also mean that you can budget for the week much more easily....
Tesco had previously pledged to reduce its food waste by half before 2030. The supermarket giant has now moved this forward five years and has made a new pledge to halve food waste by 2025. Tesco have pledged to halve food waste by 2025. In order to encourage work...
Our partner, Olio have an amazing app that allows you to share the food you no longer want or need to prevent it from becoming food waste. The app is simple to use, see below our handy guide to help you navigate around the app:Signing up Download the app from either...
What is Olio?Olio is a sharing app, that allows you to share your unwanted, but still edible food items, as well as usable household items. Not only is the app for individuals and families that want to share their unwanted food, but local companies can get involved...
Your home is not the only place where food is wasted, but also at work. In order to combat this, discuss with your colleagues, employees and employers about the ways in which you can combat food waste. One of the ways to do this is to assign a Food Waste Champion for...
Food is wasted throughout its supply chain, within production, delivery, the sale, when it reaches your plate and when it ends up in our bins. Each stage of the food process produces greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. To lower our carbon footprints,...
German supermarket, Lidl has been issued with a court ruling to remove and destroy its stock of chocolate bunnies. This came after the Swiss chocolate company, Lindt & Sprüngli, took Lidl to court due to the copying of its signature ‘Gold Bunny’. The destruction...
Who are FareShare?Established in 1994, FareShare is a UK charity that redistributes food to those that need it the most. Their reasoning for all this good work is to reduce the amount of edible food that is wasted, and to redistribute it to those that need it the...
Everyday, food is wasted on a large scale, but where does it go? In most cases, the food we waste ends up in our food recycling or landfill bins. This food could be meals we haven’t finished or food we have left to go bad in our cupboards, fridges and freezers. Food...
Making sure we make use of our food waste recycling opportunities is massively important and will help to reduce the effects of climate change. The recycling of food waste is not just important for at home, but also at work, meaning you can be more sustainable in all...
OrganisationOlio RolesCo-Founder & CEOCompany descriptionTo prevent surplus food from going to waste, Olio, a food sharing app, connects neighbours and local businesses in order to share unwanted, edible food. The app is also used to prevent the waste of non-food...
OrganisationOlio RolesCo-Founder and COOCompany descriptionTo prevent surplus food from going to waste, Olio, a food sharing app, connects neighbours and local businesses in order to share unwanted, edible food. The app is also used to prevent the waste of non-food...
Best before dates are only put on food as a guideline for when they will go bad, however they are only a guideline. Use by dates are different, as food that goes past these dates has the potential to make you very ill. British supermarket chain, Asda has removed the...
What is seasonal eating? Eating with the seasons means choosing and consuming foods that is harvested in your country at that time. For example, we all enjoy strawberries in December, but they do not grow in the UK at that time of year. Instead, we have cranberries...
Every single year, the UK throws away approximately 14 million tonnes of food waste. Compare this with the 7 million people who are struggling to afford enough food to eat, and this makes for very stark reading. An unbelievable 13% of all edible food and drinks...
Meaty Reasoning - Arguments Debunked We keep hearing it everywhere, don’t we? We need to eat more plants and less animals. A myriad of reports over the years, including those by the IPCC and Harvard, link meat consumption to environmental destruction, climate change...
1. BreadThere are 24 million slices being wasted every day! Some people are tempted to keep their bread in the fridge, but this makes your bread go stale much more quickly and you are more likely to throw it away. Very stale bread can be made into breadcrumbs or...
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