While the world wastes about 1.4 billion tons of food every year, the United States discards more food than any other country in the world: nearly 40 million tons — 80 billion pounds — every year. Let’s not feel smug as we are not great in the UK.
How much food is wasted in the UK?
- The UK throws away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste in a single year – even though 8.4 million people in the UK are in food poverty.
- 70% of UK food waste was intended for human consumption, 30% is inedible parts.
- The average UK family spends £470 per year on food that’s binned and not eaten.
- Over one third of all food produced globally goes to waste.
- Billions of pounds are wasted each year when food is disposed of unnecessarily.
Best before labels are causing food waste. We support Too Good to Go campaign, trying to change this. Do you know the difference between ‘Best Before’ and ‘Sell By’? ‘Display Until’ and ‘Use By’? Many of us don’t, and it’s causing a whopping ten per cent of Europe’s food waste – 9,000,000 tonnes across Europe each year.
Read about the campaign here – LINK
Too Good to Go also has a great APP for find food that might have been wasted by local business, which you can collect for a reduced price.
They have a mission to make sure good food gets eaten, not wasted. Every day, delicious, fresh food goes to waste at cafes, restaurants, hotels, shops and manufacturers – just because it hasn’t sold in time. The Too Good to Go app lets customers buy and collect Magic Bags of this food – at a great price – directly from businesses. Jaunty Goat and Hoole Food Market are even on the APP.
Too Good To Go – Business Sign up
Too Good To Go – get the app to purchase
What about Halloween?
You can read all about reducing waste around this time of year in our Tellus Magazine and find a Pumpkin Recipe which is tried and tested.
We linked up with Hubbub in 2014 as part of it’s Pumpkin Rescue campaign. This is why, are you looking for a scare this Halloween?
39.9 million pumpkins will be bought this Halloween, and of these, a whopping 22 million pumpkins will go to waste, left uneaten. That’s £32.6 million worth of edible food!
Why? Because after carving, many-a-pumpkin’s guts are simply thrown away. Their purpose as the infamous jack o’ lantern overshadows their true purpose – dinner! The good news is, now 3 in 5 people (59%) know you can eat your carving pumpkin.
Since Hubbub started the Pumpkin Rescue campaign in 2014, the spooky story of the uneaten pumpkins has travelled far and wide, leading to lots of eerie-sistable pumpkin recipes and dishes coming to life to show people how to save them from the bin.
Read the Infographic below from Hubbub and find more about Pumpkin Rescue on the Hubbub website- HERE
Sustainable Cheshire 