World Food Day: how Cornwall kitchens can stop binning good food

The heel of a loaf going blue in the bread bin. A bag of potatoes sprouting quietly at the back of the cupboard. Half a carton of milk poured down the sink a day after the date. Most of us throw away food we fully meant to eat, and it adds up faster than it feels.

To mark World Food Day today (Friday 16 October), the food hygiene trainers at High Speed Training have shared ten small changes that can cut down how much ends up in the bin at home.

How much food UK homes throw away

According to Love Food Hate Waste, UK households throw away 4.4 million tonnes of edible food every year. That food is worth £17.5 billion and creates 16 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions.

The cost is not only on the shopping receipt. Wasted food uses up the resources that went into producing it, generates greenhouse gases and can lead to land degradation.

Dr Richard Anderson, Director of Learning at High Speed Training, said: “It can be hard to quantify 9.5 million tonnes of annual food waste and this often leads people to think that their own food wasting habits aren’t contributing to the larger problem. However, wasting food is often easier than you may think and households in the UK throw away, on average, 1.96kg of food per day, roughly equivalent to eight meals per week.”

Where the waste comes from

Food waste at home tends to fall into a handful of familiar types:

• Plate waste. Leftovers on plates that are unwanted or not in a fit state to save.
• Expired or spoiled food. Usually down to poor storage or handling.
• Trimmings and peelings. Vegetable peels, fruit skins and fat trimmings that are not composted or used in another recipe.
• Ugly or wonky produce. Fruit and veg passed over for how it looks, whatever its quality.
• Leftovers. Thrown out through poor storage or a lack of ideas for using them.

The most wasted foods in the UK are bread, potatoes, milk, bananas, salad and vegetables.

Why good food ends up in the bin

Richard puts a lot of it down to confusion over date labels.

“A misinterpretation of ‘best before’ can lead people to discard food that is still safe to eat as they gauge these date labels as indicators of food safety, rather than quality,” he said. “Consumers can also be quick to throw away, or simply not buy, perfectly edible fruit and vegetables simply because it does not meet cosmetic standards.”

Ten ways to cut food waste at home

High Speed Training’s tips, with more guidance on its High Speed Training Hub:

1. Plan ahead. Meal prepping or planning your weekly shop saves time and money, and stops you buying more than you can eat.
2. Make your freezer your friend. Freeze leftovers for quick meals later. Trimmings and peelings can be frozen for soups or smoothies too, but check how long each food keeps frozen so you are not just delaying the waste.
3. Compost. Composting at home keeps food waste from rotting in landfill and gives you good compost for the garden.
4. Preserve your food. Freezing, canning, sugaring, salting and vacuum packing all help keep food in good condition for longer.
5. Organise your kitchen. Do a quick food audit before shopping, and rotate your stock so older items sit at the front and new ones go to the back. You will know what you have and what needs using first.
6. Buy loose. Loose fruit and veg means buying only what you need. Love Food Hate Waste, an initiative launched by WRAP, estimates that if all apples, bananas and potatoes were sold loose instead of in bags, 60,000 tonnes of food waste would be saved each year.
7. Donate any surplus. Passing on food you will not use means it helps someone in need instead of ending up in landfill.
8. Give it a sniff. A ‘best before’ date is about quality, not safety, so the sniff test is a fair check for those foods. Look for visible mould and trust your nose before deciding something has had it.
9. Love your leftovers. Get creative and turn simple dishes or sides into something new, quick and tasty.
10. Embrace the wonky. A strange-looking carrot is not necessarily a worse one. Wonky veg in the supermarket is often cheaper than the picture-perfect options, and buying it keeps those wobbly carrots out of landfill.