How to reduce food waste

Reduce food waste with our tasty tips!

The food that households throw away makes up 70% of all food waste in the UK, after production. The average family chucks out seven meals’ worth of food a week, at a cost of £70 a month, according to media reports.

It’s a lot, but it’s reducing. UK households now waste £3.4 billion a year less than in 2007. That’s great news in lots of ways, not least when it comes to preventing climate change. It saves 5 million tonnes of CO2, which is the equivalent of taking 2.2 million cars off the road. Find out more on the Love Food Hate Waste website >>

Food glorious food?

Global food loss and waste make up about eight per cent of the annual greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activity.

It’s almost the same as the emissions from global road transport, according to the UN.

CAfS factsheet

If you want to help others in your area to waste less food, how about running a Love Food Hate Waste event? Find out more in our factsheet:

Factsheet-Run a Love Food Hate Waste event

Buy only what you need

Start by writing down the meals you’re going to make for the week. Then check which ingredients you’ve already got. When you go shopping, just buy the ingredients you need.

There are phone apps to make this a lot easier. Here are just a few that you can find in your app store:

The Love Food Hate Waste app helps you plan your meals and shopping, and use up your leftovers.
With Yummly, you choose your week’s recipes and it creates a shopping list for you. It allows you to tick off what you already have in the cupboards before you go.

Cook only what you need

Grab your scales and weigh the rice, pasta, potatoes, meat, veg and other ingredients you use for the next few family meals.

Was it enough? Too much? What got wasted? Once you get the quantities right, you should find there’s less left over.

Stick a note on the inside of the cupboard door with the right amounts as a reminder.

Give away surplus food

Check if there are food banks in your area and what kinds of foods they collect. It might be possible for you to donate some types of foods that you won’t eat before their use-by date.

How about organising a collection of surplus food in your community? Our factsheet has more information:

Factsheet: How to run surplus food gathering in your community

Put less on the plate

Rather than plating up everything you’ve cooked, keep some in the saucepan or oven, and then dish it out if someone wants more.

That way, you can freeze the leftovers or use them next day.

Use up your leftovers

Some recipe websites allow you to search for meals based on ingredients, so you can enter foods you need to use up.

Here are a few you could try next time you’ve got leftover leeks or spare squash!

The links will take you to recipes using common leftovers, but you can also search for specific ingredients.

Love Food Hate Waste

BBC Good Food

Jamie Oliver

Keep an eye on the dates

When you’re planning meals for the week, start with the ingredients that have the shortest shelf life.

It might help to put the foods with the longest dates towards the back of the fridge, so you can start at the front and use things up before they go off.

If you’re not sure about the difference between ‘Use By’ and ‘Best Before’ dates, here’s a handy explanation from the Love Food Hate Waste website:

The Use By date on a product is there for food safety. You can eat it right up to this date, but not after – even if it looks and smells fine.
Best Before, on the other hand, is about quality. Food should be safe to eat after the date, but it may no longer be at its best.

Find out more about food date labels and tips for keeping on top of dates