Love Food Project
Women get together to cut food waste by half.
A pilot initiative between Love Food Hate Waste and the National Federation of Women’s Institutes has helped homes to cut the food they throw away by half, and make big savings on their food bills.
The partnership organisations set up the Love Food Champions project to enable groups across the country to exchange advice and ideas on making the most of their food, and to see if they could waste less. WI members volunteered to be ‘Champions’, recruiting and then running groups for local non-WI residents in their own communities.
Before the project the group participants were throwing away 4.7kg of food per week – just slightly less than the National average - but after the project, they were wasting less than half this amount per household. The groups not only managed to cut back on the food they were throwing out, but also learned new skills on food management and cooking. Another very positive outcome to the pilots was its social side: some participants still meet up with each other.
Cambridge primary school teacher, Milly Descrivan claims she has saved £200 a month on her food bill as a result of Love Food Champions. She said: “The project has helped my family eat healthier - we even have ‘leftover day’ at home now where I won’t cook anything new, we just use leftovers.”
“In the Easter Holidays, as an experiment, I went to my local supermarket to buy exactly what I needed when I needed it. My shopping bill was halved and food wastage practically non-existent.”
The Love Food Champions Report is being published today by Love Food Hate Waste, the campaign set up by WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) almost 12 months ago, to tackle the huge problem of food being wasted in UK homes. The pilot project ran over 4 months from February this year, with groups completing the project in 10 areas around England*. Topics covered planning and shopping for meals, keeping food fresh for longer, and enjoying leftovers. A WI workbook accompanied the project, which is also available online at www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
Julia Falcon from the Campaign said “We throw away a third of the food we buy in the UK, so to cut back that waste by 50% is outstanding. Although this is just a pilot, we can see that groups, who decide to share their experiences with each other, and tackle this problem together, can work extremely well”. She continues “We’d like others to try something similar in their own home town, and so we are producing a “step-by-step” guide which should help other groups wishing to follow suit.” The project shows so much promise that several local authorities are hoping to start schemes in the near future.
“Reducing food waste is a win-win situation for consumers. You can reduce your food bills and help the planet by sending less waste to landfill. We have shown that you can reduce your food waste by half. Imagine the impact we can make if everyone reduces their food waste by half” said Fay Mansell, chair of the National Federation of Women's Institutes.
Environment Secretary Hilary Benn, said:
“Food belongs on our plates and not in the bin. This initiative shows that with a bit of ingenuity and a willingness to share ideas, food waste can be cut to an absolute minimum – putting money back in people’s pockets and diverting damaging food waste from landfill. I would like to congratulate the Women’s Institute and WRAP on this initiative."
Research from Love Food Hate Waste* shows that most people don’t think they waste food, but by the end of the project almost 100 % of participants said that it bothered them a great deal or a fair amount to throw uneaten food items away.
For a copy of the Love Food Champions report and tips about how to reduce food waste, please visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com or www.thewi.org.uk/campaigns
The Food We Waste report, released in May 2008 by WRAP, showed that in the UK we buy and then throw away £10bn worth of food which could have been eaten.
----- Ends -----
Notes to Editors:
1. * Research information:
• The 10 areas where the Love Food Champion pilots took place were Cambridgeshire; Gloucestershire; Essex; Northamptonshire; North Yorkshire West; Oxfordshire; Suffolk; West Kent; West Sussex; and Wiltshire.
• In all, 80 homes benefited from the pilot project.
• To assist others wishing to set up groups, or run a similar scheme from an existing community or social group, Love Food Hate Waste will be producing a Guide to accompany the Report and Workbook.
2. Key facts from the Love Food Hate Waste campaign:
• In the UK we are throwing away one third of the food we buy. That’s like one in three bagfuls of food shopping going straight in the bin.
• We throw away 6.7 tonnes of food each year in the UK, when most of this food could have been eaten. (It’s not just peelings and bones – it’s good food). That’s equivalent to filling Wembley Stadium with food waste 8 times over!
• In terms of environmental impact – producing, storing and getting the food to our homes uses a lot of energy. If we stopped wasting all this food, it would save the equivalent of at least 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. That’s like taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads.
• Most of this food reaches landfill sites where it emits methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
• High economic cost – at least £10 billion worth of food that could have been eaten is thrown out every year. UK householders are throwing out on average more than £400/year.
• We throw food out for two main reasons:
1) we cook or prepare too much, costing us around £4 billion per year;
2) and we let food go off, either completely untouched, or opened/ started but not finished, costing £6 billion per year.
3. Generic Footnote:
• For more information on the Love Food Hate Waste campaign, visit: www.lovefoodhatewaste.com
• Key findings of our recent research on the nature, scale and causes of household food waste can be found at: http://www.wrap.org.uk/retail/food_waste/index.html
• WRAP helps individuals, businesses and local authorities to reduce waste and recycle more, making better use of resources and helping to tackle climate change.
• Established as a not-for-profit company in 2000, WRAP is backed by Government funding from England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• Working in seven key areas (Construction, Retail, Manufacturing, Organics, Business Growth, Behavioural Change, and Local Authority Support), WRAP’s work focuses on market development and support to drive forward recycling and materials resource efficiency within these sectors, as well as wider communications and awareness activities including the multi-media national Recycle Now campaign for England.
• More information on all of WRAP's programmes can be found on www.wrap.org.uk
4. The WI is the largest women’s organisation in the UK with 205,000 members in 6,800 WIs. The charity campaigns on issues that matter to women and their communities from children’s diet and post offices to climate change and violence against women. Visit www.theWI.org.uk for more information.
For further information, case studies, pictures and tips contact:
Jessica Boydell
Fishburn Hedges
020 7544 3032
E-mail: jess.boydell@fishburn-hedges.co.uk
Joanna Clarke
Fishburn Hedges
020 7544 3119
E: joanna.clarke@fishburn-hedges.co.uk
Susan Nisbet, PR Manager
WRAP
01295 819677/819695
E-mail: susan.nisbet@wrap.org.uk
For further information about the Women’s Institute, please contact: Jennie Farrell on 020 7371 9300 or j.farrell@nfwi.org.uk