Families Wasting £50 A Month Throwing Away Food, Says Minister

[Frank Hovis]

And a patronising, lecturing tone as well. It's like NuLab never left.

I know somebody (extreme case admittedly) who doesn't spend £50 a month on food. I cannot believe anybody bar extreme cases wastes £50 a month of food. No way is that an average, it looks to me like they've bundled up supermarket and catering waste and allocated it to households and then told us off for wasting food when we're not actually doing any such thing.

Richard Benyon is out of his depth.

Householders are discarding up to £50 of food a month, much of which was “perfectly safe” to eat, Richard Benyon, a minister in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, has claimed.

Mr Benyon said many people had little idea how to keep fruit and vegetables fresh in the fridge or that cheese can be preserved for longer if it is wrapped properly after opening.

He urged families to eat their left-overs and pay more attention to the storage instructions on labels to avoid produce going off.

A more frugal approach to food waste would ease the strain on household expenses, he suggested.

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According to a government-backed anti-waste campaign, discarding food costs the average household £480 a year, rising to £680 for a family with children, the equivalent of about £50 a month.

Although household food waste has fallen by 13 per cent across Britain since 2006, families still discard 7.2 million tons of food and drink at home every year, most of which could have been eaten, officials said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/10019602/Families-wasting-50-a-month-throwing-away-food-says-minister.html

[Frank Hovis]

Starting a running total to see how many of us it takes to get to £50:

Over the last month:

Half of a big carton of milk: 50p

One orange: 30p

Three small packets of love hearts: 50p

All of which had gone over.

Total: £1.30

[winkie]

http://www.channel4.com/news/why-the-supermarket-secrecy-on-food-waste

Start at the top, terrible waste at the big supermarkets, get them to reduce good food more drastically to sell rather than throwing it out when much of it is still edible......also instead of selling perishable fruit for instant as buy one get one free why not sell one for half price....

Waste is all around us, would rather chuck it out rather than sell it cheaper or give it away.

[StainlessSteelCat]

Start at the top, terrible waste at the big supermarkets, get them to reduce good food more drastically to sell rather than throwing it out when much of it is still edible......also instead of selling perishable fruit for instant as buy one get one free why not sell one for half price....

Appreciate you probably don't shop at any of the major supermarkets - but judging by the quality of fruit and veg on offer sometimes - you are left in no doubt they are selling it for as long as possible. I've seen some fruit/veg at the reduced counters which is semi-liquid slime in a plastic packet. Still with a day or two to run before it meets its sell by date too.

No much gets wasted at Stainless towers though. What we don't eat - the local horses, birds or compost bin does.

[SarahBell]

We have green food waste bins (Not everyone uses them though as some prefer to throw their rubbish into a black bin for the fortnightly collection. I assume they like maggots)

At the start people were throwing out huge amounts of food. Now I assume some have changed their ways. or gone back to the black bin option.

You've got to be spending a lot to waste that much food. But people do. Have a look at what the person is buying in front of you next time.

[winkie]

Appreciate you probably don't shop at any of the major supermarkets - but judging by the quality of fruit and veg on offer sometimes - you are left in no doubt they are selling it for as long as possible. I've seen some fruit/veg at the reduced counters which is semi-liquid slime in a plastic packet. Still with a day or two to run before it meets its sell by date too.

No much gets wasted at Stainless towers though. What we don't eat - the local horses, birds or compost bin does.

No don't like to throw food away....everything gets eaten, fruit gets stewed or made into marmalade, grapefruit make great marmalade, chutney also worth making......any 'eat before' dates get frozen before or on that date or made into a great vegetable bake for example, veg gets blanched and frozen in bags for use later in stews etc ....bread freezes well or crumpets, bagels, muffins etc....cheese lasts so no problem with wasting that.....cake can be made into puddings based on the idea of bread and butter pudding......the birds never go without they get the crumbs.

[StuG III]

The get out clause is where it says

up to

A bit like those sales where they say up to 75% off

So if Eric Pickles is throwing away half his suckling pig breakfast, thats £50 right there!

But really, there are lots of people who throw away anything past its date and I know people who throw stuff away because its close to its date. Mentalness.

[Qetesuesi]

Good thread - but why isn't it in the economy section of the forum?

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

As nanny state-ish as he sounds, I think he does have a point.

However, part of the problem is that it's more expensive to buy food in small quantities. If you live alone, especially, it can be a challenge to avoid being raped at the checkout or being unable to consume stuff before it goes off. About the only way I've managed it is to simply eat the same thing every day for several days in succession. If I buy a 1kg bag of carrots at the start of the week, then basically I'm eating carrots for the rest of the week. If I were to buy an equivalent bag of courgettes or spinach at the same time, I probably wouldn't be able to get through them before they went off, even with storage in the fridge. But buy in significantly smaller quantities, and the price skyrockets.

[winkie]

As nanny state-ish as he sounds, I think he does have a point.

However, part of the problem is that it's more expensive to buy food in small quantities. If you live alone, especially, it can be a challenge to avoid being raped at the checkout or being unable to consume stuff before it goes off. About the only way I've managed it is to simply eat the same thing every day for several days in succession. If I buy a 1kg bag of carrots at the start of the week, then basically I'm eating carrots for the rest of the week. If I were to buy an equivalent bag of courgettes or spinach at the same time, I probably wouldn't be able to get through them before they went off, even with storage in the fridge. But buy in significantly smaller quantities, and the price skyrockets.

Carrot soup is delicious with coriander even more so, so is spicy roasted parsnip soup.......Spinach & feta filo pie....spinach freezes really well, wash, spin dry and freeze in individual portion freezer bags with contents and date clearly on front.....cook and freeze in bulk saving cost on both food and fuel.

lots of pasta sauces can be made up and frozen, so all that has to be done on a busy day is cook the pasta, defrost the sauce and mix.

Courgette frittata, courgette & lemon linguine, tomato & courgette gratin.....

[19 year mortgage 8itch]

Good thread - but why isn't it in the economy section of the forum?

This thread would be wasted in the main forum

[bearwithasorehead]

It does seem that supermarkets vary as to policy

In my local tesco there is nothing reduced when close to sell-by, but in Morrisons there are hordes of pensioners waiting at 7pm when the first reductions happen. Then two great trolleys are wheeled to the front of the store at 8pm with reduced bread. They seem to try to clear everything and it is a boon if you're poor and can face the scrums of obese (!) pensioners shoving to get their 6p pasties.

[happy_renting]

This thread would be wasted in the main forum

Indceed. I read a Government report somewhere that households waste up to 27% of forum threads.

[gilf]

As nanny state-ish as he sounds, I think he does have a point.

However, part of the problem is that it's more expensive to buy food in small quantities. If you live alone, especially, it can be a challenge to avoid being raped at the checkout or being unable to consume stuff before it goes off. About the only way I've managed it is to simply eat the same thing every day for several days in succession. If I buy a 1kg bag of carrots at the start of the week, then basically I'm eating carrots for the rest of the week. If I were to buy an equivalent bag of courgettes or spinach at the same time, I probably wouldn't be able to get through them before they went off, even with storage in the fridge. But buy in significantly smaller quantities, and the price skyrockets.

This is it as far as I'm concerned. It makes financial sense to buy in bulk, eat what you can of it and ditch the rest.

Basically a product of modern life, I can't go out shopping to purchase what I eat each day (have done in the past when I lived over a shop), so I have to make a reasonable guess at what I might eat in a week. If for example I fancy a stir fry I have to by huge packets of things like baby sweetcorn, knowing I will never eat all of them.

Regardless of that £50 is nothing like it.

[winkie]

It does seem that supermarkets vary as to policy

In my local tesco there is nothing reduced when close to sell-by, but in Morrisons there are hordes of pensioners waiting at 7pm when the first reductions happen. Then two great trolleys are wheeled to the front of the store at 8pm with reduced bread. They seem to try to clear everything and it is a boon if you're poor and can face the scrums of obese (!) pensioners shoving to get their 6p pasties.

I have to say Morrisons are very good at selling reduced fruit and veg, they even package bags of odd shaped veg or near its useful life purposely to clear.....last week got a large bag of parsnips, nothing wrong with them for 36p.....far better than throwing it away I say.

[porca misèria]

Seems a daft thing to say. I wonder if he's been quoted out of context?

OTOH, there's an underlying point. If you get the dole or more and struggle to get by then you're wasting a lot of something. That may not include food, but it must at least be a candidate.

[porca misèria]

I have to say Morrisons are very good at selling reduced fruit and veg, they even package bags of odd shaped veg or near its useful life purposely to clear.....last week got a large bag of parsnips, nothing wrong with them for 36p.....far better than throwing it away I say.

Aren't parsnips past their season? Must be quite ancient by now, but I guess you cook 'em up to get the delicious flavour and mask the age.

[winkie]

Seems a daft thing to say. I wonder if he's been quoted out of context?

OTOH, there's an underlying point. If you get the dole or more and struggle to get by then you're wasting a lot of something. That may not include food, but it must at least be a candidate.

What is the difference between saving money and earning money?.....there is no difference.

[crashmonitor]

I think the Minister has a point when he says people don't know how to preserve food. The fridge is the best place for most fresh produce. I also can't understand why people let bread go either, when you have a freezing option( and bread bins don't make sense when it will last four times longer in the fridge put back air tight) We usually buy about ten loaves at a time at about 20p a pop on the reduced counter, so it starts its life in the freezer anyway.

I have often said on this forum that nothing of ours ends up in the wheelie. But we have the advantage of rarely buying animal fat...cheese, meat etc. which obviously presents a health hazard if left to long.

People are also careless with their food monitoring and just forget what they have in until it is too late, the elderly* are the biggest offenders.

*When you get to a certain age you start to bail out elderly relatives who have have a dozen bin liners worth of rotting food of stuff like ham and cheese.

[winkie]

Aren't parsnips past their season? Must be quite ancient by now, but I guess you cook 'em up to get the delicious flavour and mask the age.

......amazing what you can do if you use a bit of creative imagination.

[bearwithasorehead]

I have to say Morrisons are very good at selling reduced fruit and veg, they even package bags of odd shaped veg or near its useful life purposely to clear.....last week got a large bag of parsnips, nothing wrong with them for 36p.....far better than throwing it away I say.

Yes, quite in contrast to all the other supermarkets I know.

FIVE separate 'stations' for reduced food in the store

Bakery shelves for reduced pastries.

Squashed can and boxes shelving for dry goods

Chilled compartment in milk aisle (most popular - you need to be a rugby player to get in there after 7pm)

Front of store reduced breads after 6-7pm.

Vegis stall, as you point out.

If I could be arsed to go at 7pm every day I could get my shop down below £20 a week for a family of four.

This is, however, a pretty poor area of W Mids

[winkie]

Yes, quite in contrast to all the other supermarkets I know.

FIVE separate 'stations' for reduced food in the store

Bakery shelves for reduced pastries.

Squashed can and boxes shelving for dry goods

Chilled compartment in milk aisle (most popular - you need to be a rugby player to get in there after 7pm)

Front of store reduced breads after 6-7pm.

Vegis stall, as you point out.

If I could be arsed to go at 7pm every day I could get my shop down below £20 a week for a family of four.

This is, however, a pretty poor area of W Mids

All this is good I say.....foot flow or fall is the key........you get your good deal or bargain and so feel far happier spending on other things you need, a bit of give and take....win win all round....I like Morrisons, good British company that I support.

[DEATH]

People with kids must waste quite a bit. The kids I have seen seem to only ever eat half of what they are given.

[Errol]

If I've paid for it I'll throw it away if I like. The choice is entirely mine to make.

This is another example of completely unacceptable government interference.

[crashmonitor]

If I've paid for it I'll throw it away if I like. The choice is entirely mine to make.

This is another example of completely unacceptable government interference.

I think it was aimed at families on benefits where the taxpayer has paid for the stuff. However, I am sure the supermarkets wouldn't appreciate it if we didn't throw a third of the food we buy away, think of the effect on their profitability.