Case Study - Isla Arendell

Isla is keen to encourage others to cut back on the amount of food they waste and believes that with a third of food bought for consumption in the UK mostly ending up in landfill sites, we should all think twice before hitting the supermarkets for our weekly food shop.

"I personally think that the British public throw away perfectly good food today for a number of different reasons.  Firstly, I think we all have a ‘junk food mentality’ where we can buy a whole range of ready meals and raw ingredients very easily.  Most of us don’t think about where it comes from or the work that goes into growing the vegetables or rearing the animals and therefore don’t think twice before throwing away an unopened ready meal, a packet of meat or untouched fruit and vegetables."

"Today most of us have also lost the skills of meal planning and making shopping lists which means that we fall into the trap of going for a weekly food shop and piling a huge variety of items into the trolley - just because we like the look of something.  This is easy to do as we are all short of time, are busy and have children which are often fussy eaters to feed –not only does this contribute to food waste but it also works out as very expensive."

Today Isla tends to keep her food waste down by planning her weekly food shop, shopping sensibly and cooking home made meals from scratch.  She tries to avoid supermarket ‘buy one, get one free’ offers unless it is something she can freeze and believes that we can all make simple changes to help the environment and to save ourselves money.

"I used to shop with the idea of buying enough food to last me a week and additional items for backup, but today I plan all my meals in advance, so little or nothing is wasted.

"I also tend to buy items with the longest shelf-life, that way, if we change our minds about eating it, then there’s still time to eat it before it goes off.  I also go to my local butcher, fishmonger or green grocers where I know that I can buy the required portion of something and have found that by weighting out all my ingredients when cooking, that I don’t have too many leftovers that just sit in the fridge and never get eaten - no matter how good our intentions may be!"