About food waste

The "Love Food, Hate Waste" campaign aims to raise awareness of the need to reduce the amount of food that we throw away, and how doing this will benefit us as consumers and the environment.

The good news is that there are a few quick and easy things we can all do to reduce the amount of food we throw away.

"Love Food, Hate Waste" is brought to you by WRAP, who is also responsible for encouraging recycling and home composting.

WRAP is funded by the government and works to encourage and enable businesses and consumers to be more efficient in their use of materials and recycle more things more often. This helps to minimise landfill, reduce carbon emissions and improve our environment.

6.7 million tonnes of food is thrown away by households in the UK every year,  or, to put it another way, around a third of all the food we buy end up being thrown away, and most of it could have been eaten.

Some of the waste is made up of things like peelings, cores and bones, but the majority is, or once was, perfectly good food.

Current research suggests that about 40% (by weight) of the food thrown away that could have been eaten is fresh fruit & vegetables (which includes potatoes). 

Meat and fish, bread and other bakery products, dairy produce and rice & pasta are all in the "top 5" most wasted foods.

The fact is that we throw away perfectly good food from all food groups. Whether it’s a couple of chicken breasts which have gone past their use by date, or the last few slices of bread which have gone stale or a chunk of cheese which has gone mouldy.

The main reasons for throwing away food can be grouped in to "cooking or preparing too much" (for example cooking too much rice or pasta and it gets left in the saucepan or on the plate) or "not using food in time" - for example having to throw out fruit and vegetables because they’ve gone off in the fruit bowl or in the fridge, or not eating food before it goes past its use-by date.

We know that there are lots of potential reasons why food might not get eaten in time – our plans change, we forget what food we have in the cupboards, we forget to freeze or chill something to use at a later date, we lack the confidence or knowledge on how to use up our leftovers – which is where our website can help!

For a full explanation, please go to The Food Standards Agency webpages. In summary: 

Use-by

This is the key date in terms of safety - never eat products after this date and observe storage instructions. Check if the food can be frozen if you need to eat it at a later date. 'Use by' dates are usually found on chilled products such as cooked meats, soft cheeses and dairy-based desserts.

Best before

'Best before' dates are usually on longer shelf life foods such as frozen, tinned or dried goods and refer to quality rather than safety. So, with these things, it's best to use your judgement. It should be safe to eat food after the 'best before' date, but food may no longer be at its best.

One exception is eggs - never eat eggs after the best before date.

Display Until \ Sell by

Date marks such as 'display until' or 'sell by' often appear near or next to the 'best before' or 'use by' date. They are used by some shops to help with stock control and are instructions for shop staff, not shoppers.

The vast majority of us already think throwing away good food is a dreadful waste. Hence the name of our campaign 'Love Food, Hate Waste'.

There are serious environmental implications too. The amount of food we throw away is a waste of resources. Just think about all the energy, water and packaging used in food production, transportation and storage. This all goes to waste when we throw away perfectly good food.

Cheese is a good example – feeding and milking the cows, cooling and transporting the milk, processing it in to cheese, packing it, getting it to the shops, keeping it at the right temperature all the time. If it then gets thrown away it will most likely end up in a landfill site, where, rather than harmlessly decomposing as many people think, it rots and actually releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.

If we stopped wasting food which could have been eaten, it would have the same impact on carbon emissions as taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads.

The best thing that can happen to food is that it makes it to our plates and is enjoyed.

Avoiding throwing out food that could have been eaten will save you money and help reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

However some food waste is inevitable. Egg shells, banana skins and tea bags are never going to be on the menu.

Home composting is a great way to stop this sort of waste ending up in landfill, and our gardens will really thank us for it. See our Home Composting website for all you need to know about home composting.

If you live in an area that has local kerbside food collection service, you can use this to collect anything you can’t eat, or home compost. It is recycled it into a good quality soil, improver or fertilizer. Too find out more visit http://www.recyclenow.com/what_more_can_i_do/can_it_be_recycled/food_waste.html

Around 20% of our climate change emissions are related to the production, processing, transportation and storage of food, but we are throwing away a third of all the food we buy.

If we stopped wasting all this good food, we could have a huge impact on the environment, the equivalent of taking 1 in 5 cars off UK roads.

This could make a significant contribution to overall greenhouse gas emissions, and save us time and money.

As far as packaging is concerned, we actually throw away more food from our homes than packaging in the UK every year.

Most of the major supermarket retailers in the UK welcome the campaign and have committed to work with WRAP to identify ways they can help us, their customers, to reduce the amount of food thrown away. This might be through providing more information (recipes, how to store food better etc), the types of products sold (ranges of portion sizes, resealable packaging etc), the way food is sold (e.g. "half price" rather than "two for one" on food that goes off quickly) and so on.

WRAP has carried out ground-breaking research into food waste, which tells us how much and what types of food are being thrown away, the reasons why and about people’s attitudes and behaviours to food and food waste.

WRAP has also analysed research done by others on food waste. More details can be found below, in the Research Summary that WRAP published in March 2007 on WRAP’s main web-site.

We know how many carbon dioxide equivalents (greenhouse gases) are produced in the UK from Government figures, and experts in the UK and Europe suggest that almost 20% of the total comes from producing, transporting, preparing and storing food and drink.

We also know that when food is sent to landfill it produces more greenhouse gases as it breaks down.

We can calculate how many carbon dioxide equivalents are linked to food, and if we assume that half of the food thrown away could have been eaten (and we think that most could have been) then this is equal to at least 15 million tones of carbon dioxide equivalents.

We know how many cars there are on the road, and how many carbon dioxide equivalents the average car produces, and so we can work out that this 15 million tonnes is the same as that produced by 1 in 5 cars in the UK.

Love Food Hate Waste is not about eating more, it’s about wasting less.

The problem of obesity is very serious. Because of this we are working with Department of Health and other bodies to make sure our advice on food reflects theirs. For example, our campaign website features easy to follow portioning advice.

Our research tells us that fruit and vegetables are being thrown away in large quantities. Love Food Hate Waste is all about making the best of the food we’ve bought, and we have a wealth of advice on our website, including storage tips to keep food fresh for longer, and recipe ideas, to help us eat the fruit and vegetables we buy, and not waste them.

Visit the www.lovefoodhatewaste.com website for tips, recipes and much more. Alternatively, you can email or call the Helpline if you have any questions on 0808 1002040