UK families throwing away equivalent of ‘six meals per week’ : study

UK families junked an average of the equivalent of six meals per week in food waste, according to research.

According to publicly-funded recycling group the Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), this amounted to £60 a month for a household.

The group said buying too much, serving large portions and confusion over food labelling were the leading causes for the waste.

The chief executive of the group, Dr Liz Goodwin called on stores, food manufacturers and government to tackle the situation.

The BBC quoted Goodwin as saying though consumers were seriously worried about the cost of food, yet they were wasting millions of tonnes and billions of pounds.

Staples such as bread, milk and potatoes were most frequently thrown out, with around 86 million chickens discarded each year.

Wrap advised people to buy only as per their need,  serve smaller portions, and understand the difference between "best before" and "use by" dates (See: Cutting waste: UK to make food labelling less stringent).

According to the organisation, funded by the governments of the UK and the EU, households had cut food waste by 21 per cent over five years, saving consumers £13 billion, consuming more of the leftovers instead of trashuing it (See: UK Consumers now buy, waste less food than before the recession).

Dr Goodwin however, said this could be further cut by 1.7 million tonnes a year by 2025.

She pointed out that food waste was costing the economy as much as  £12.5 billion a year, even as consumers were seriously worried about the cost of food and how it had increased over recent years.

According to the campaign group, 4.2 million tonnes of "avoidable" food waste - food which could have been eaten was being trashed each year, including 320,000 tonnes of potatoes, 70,000 tonnes of breakfast cereal, 67,000 tonnes of bananas and 18,000 tonnes of chocolates and sweets.

Further, the equivalent of 24 million slices of bread was being thrown away each day.

Almost half the food waste went straight to the bin from the fridge or cupboard.

Including items such as skin, tea bags and fish bones, the total amount of food and drink waste in the UK stood at 7 million tonnes a year.

In October British supermarket chain Tesco revealed today that 28,500 tonnes of food was wasted in its stores and distribution centres in the first six months of this year alone. (See: Tesco reveals 28,000 tonnes of its food wasted in 6 months).