We are big food wasters here in the UK

We are big food wasters here in the UK

9.5 million tonnes of food is wasted every year in the UK. This is the weight of 10 million giraffes, or 800 thousand times the weight of The Shard.

Photography Credit: Mr Aesthetics

 

 

70% of this wasted food could have been prevented, with the other 30% being the inedible parts.

Us consumers just buy way too much and we are the blame for 71% of this despicable amount of food waste. An average household in the UK wastes 237 kilos of food per year, with London and Newcastle households reported to have the highest rating in food waste.

With the latest push to get us consumers to buy all 'wonky vegetables' to combat food waste, you would have thought that more food got wasted in the manufacturing and retail side and not with our household waste. But only 17% of all food waste is during production and manufacturing.

Farms barely throw away their produce, even if it doesn't look perfect enough to sell in supermarkets. They will sell it to food producers who use the produce for canned soups, bags of frozen vegetables and jars of jam and pickles.

Supermarkets actually make a lot of money on their wonky produce as they pay little to the farmers but their markup is much higher than they would charge for their perfect looking produce.

According to WRAP, only 2% of all food waste is due to retail and 9% in hospitality and food services.

To make things even worse, 80% of millennials discard uneaten food weekly. What the hell are y'all thinking? Please just buy what you need and make a frikking meal plan! 


Sources
Friendsoftheearth
Recycle-more
Resource
Wrap
Ons.gov
Ons.gov
Wrap

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