Food Waste in The United Kingdom - Sources

Sources

The single largest producer of food waste in the United Kingdom is the domestic household. In 2007, households created 6,700,000 tonnes of food waste – accounting for 19 per cent of all municipal solid waste. Potatoes account for the largest quantity of avoidable food disposed of; 359,000 tonnes per year are thrown away, 49 per cent (177,400 tonnes) of which are untouched. Bread slices account for the second food type most disposed of (328,000 tonnes per year), and apples the third (190,000 tonnes per year). Salad is disposed of in the greatest proportion - 45 per cent of all salad purchased by weight will be thrown away uneaten.

Much of the food thrown away could have been avoided (4,100,000 tonnes, 61 per cent of the total amount of food waste) and with better management could have been eaten or used. Unavoidable foods, such as vegetable peelings and teabags, account for 19 per cent of the total, with the remaining 20 per cent being unavoidable through preferences (e.g. bread crusts) and cooking types (e.g. potato skins). However, the vast majority of consumers (90%) are unaware of the amount of food they throw away; individuals who believed that their household wasted no food were shown to be throwing away 88 kg of avoidable food per year.

The amount of food waste produced by a household and its occupants is affected by several factors; WRAP found the most impacting factors to be: firstly the size of the household, followed by the age of the individual occupants and finally the household composition (e.g. single occupant household). The other factors: job status, lifestage, ethnicity and occupation grouping of individuals were found to have less correlation between the amount of avoidable waste.

Regarding household size, the relationship is not proportional (two occupants do not dispose of twice as much food waste as one occupant); single-occupancy households, on average, throw away 3.2 kilograms (7.1 lb): per week the least food waste by weight but the most proportionately. This disproportional wastage has been partially attributed to food packaging sizes being largely inappropriate for people living on their own. Families with children (under the age of 16), on a per household per week basis, are shown to waste the most food by weight (7.3 kilograms (16 lb)); when taken individually however, members of a family that includes children waste the least food (1.8 kilograms (4.0 lb)). Contrary to both previous research and conventional wisdom, the report discovered that older people waste as much avoidable food as younger people (1.2 kg per person per week); in terms of mean average cost and weight of food waste, older people do waste less, although for retired households this may be because they are smaller.

Other sectors also attribute to the amounts of food waste. The food industry produces large amounts of food waste, with retailers alone generating 1,600,000 tonnes of food waste per year. Supermarkets particularly have been criticised for wasting items which are damaged or unsold (what the industry calls 'surplus food'), but that often remain edible. However, exact statistics for the amount of food wasted by supermarkets is mostly unavailable; although a few voluntarily release data on food waste, it is not required by law. Similarly, limited information is available on amounts generated by the agricultural sector. Before a reversal of European Union policy in 2008, which came into effect on July 1, 2009, misshaped or 'wonky' fruit and vegetables could not be sold by retailers and were required to be thrown away.