Waitrose

Waitrose is turning its attention to food waste

Waitrose has launched a new campaign to help shoppers waste less food after a new survey commissioned by the retailer found fresh produce is among the top binned products.

The new Live Wise campaign will be run by in-house magazine Waitrose Weekend and will offer handy tips on how to avoid food waste, seven-day meal plan, recipes for leftovers and portion control.

The magazine will also feature the efforts of four households who will aim to run zero-waste kitchens using a seven-day meal plan, recipes for leftovers and portion control.

A survey on food waste found that young people waste more than older generations, with 44 per cent of 18-25 year olds discarding food every day, compared to 16 per cent of over-55s.

The majority (89 per cent) of those asked said they “hate wasting food”, while a quarter said they forget what food they have in their kitchen.

Salad leaves, bread, fruit and vegetables, as well as leftovers and open jars of sauce were cited as the most discarded food in households.

'The desire to reduce waste is clearly there, we just need to start making a few fundamental changes to the way we buy, store and cook food,” said Waitrose food editor, Silvana Franco.

“For example, taking stock of what foods are near their use-by date and then freezing or cooking them before it’s too late. It's really quite startling how much goes to waste and we hope our campaign can help shoppers get more from their groceries. As well as financial gains, reducing waste has a positive effect on the environment too.'

Waitrose’s tips for saving food waste include saving onion skins for stock, adding oil and vinegar to jam remnants for a fruity salad dressing and using the water from a can of chickpeas (in place of egg white) to make a vegan meringue.

In 2015, Waitrose signed up to the government-backed Courtauld Commitment 2025, a voluntary agreement to reduce UK food waste by a fifth in 10 years.

The retailer has since extended its FareShare scheme, which uses a mobile app to alert local charities when surplus food is available.

It has also added weather-blemished topfruit, beans and tomatoes to its Little Less Than Perfect range of wonky veg.

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