Prevention
See also: Food safety and food quality| Reasons for food waste | |
|---|---|
| Reason for disposal | Weight of all food waste |
| Inedible | 36.5% |
| Left on plate | 15.7% |
| Out of date | 15.1% |
| Mouldy | 9.3% |
| Looked bad | 8.8% |
| Smelt/tasted bad | 4.5% |
| Left from cooking | 4% |
| Other | 3.8% |
| In fridge/cupboard too long | 1.5% |
To reduce the food waste produced (often unintentionally or unavoidably, due to lifestyle) by consumers, advisory campaigns and articles have put forward varying advice and suggestions. The following strategies: planning before food shopping, understanding food date labels and using leftovers in other meals, are universally agreed to be effective in preventing food waste.
Planning, before food shopping, and knowing what purchases are necessary is among ways of reducing food waste; buy one, get one free (BOGOF) offers have been criticised for encouraging customers to purchase food items that are eventually thrown away; as part of its own campaign on food waste, supermarket retailer Morrisons is to offer “One Free to Freeze” as a replacement for BOGOFs, with hopes that these promotions will encourage customers to plan ahead.
Understanding food storage and food date labels is an important, but currently problematic, measure; in 2008, research by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) showed that food dates were poorly understood by consumers; only 36 per cent of people interpreted a best before date as a use by date and only 55 per cent correctly interpreted use by dates. Food date labels are planned to undergo radical changes as part of the "War on waste".
Leftover foods can and are encouraged to be used in other meals; currently this is not widely undertaken due to a "lack of confidence". Specialist cookbooks and waste campaigns include recipes which are designed to incorporate typical leftovers and require minimal cooking skill.
Sectors of the food industry (manufacturing and retail) have pledged to reduce the amount of food they directly waste, and additionally what they cause households to waste indirectly. This is planned to happen through a combination of: effective labeling, pack size range, storage advice and packaging that extends the duration of food freshness. The latest initiative in May 2009, rather than a new policy, is seen as an expansion to ongoing attempts to reduce the wider food packaging. The aim is to cut UK household food waste by 155,000 tonnes (2.5% of total waste) before the end of 2010 by helping UK households prevent food going to waste.
"Food charities", the most widely known being "FareShare", distribute surplus food from the food industry among disadvantaged people in the communities. As of 2006, three of the 'Big Five' supermarkets – Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury's and Tesco – are working with FareShare and similar charities to reduce the amount of waste they produce going to landfill.
Read more about this topic: Food Waste In The United Kingdom, Response
Famous quotes containing the word prevention:
“... if this world were anything near what it should be there would be no more need of a Book Week than there would be a of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)