Your Challenge
Before you do your next food shop, take a look through your fridge and cupboards. All of us have something lurking at the back that we’ve forgotten about and needs using.
- Step 1: Clear out anything mouldy.
- Step 2: Bring older items that need to be used to the front.
- Step 3: Use leftover items in other meals, for example a stir-fry or casserole are great ways to use up unwanted veg.
- Step 4: For your weekly shop, think of some meal ideas that will use up your leftover ingredients. Maybe it’s half a jar of curry paste, or some old carrots. Don’t let them go to waste. Planning meals that use these ingredients will help you minimise your food waste and maximise your budget.
- Step 5: After your shop, do a simple stock rotation of items in the fridge like they do in the supermarkets, making sure your new food is either at the back or on the bottom. How many times have you found old bags of herbs at the bottom of your salad drawer? Rotate them to the top to avoid them being wasted.
Why you're doing this
An incredible one third of all food is wasted. In the UK, this adds up to 6.6 million tonnes of food wasted from households every year [1]. Discarded food is one of the biggest creators of the greenhouse gas methane, when it rots in landfill. And when we waste food, we’re also wasting the energy used to grow, harvest, transport and package it.
How you'll make a difference
This is a quick way to cut down your food waste significantly and take a positive step toward stopping climate change. You’ll save money too, as any food thrown away before you get to use it is money in the bin!
It is time to #FixTheFoodSystem. By doing this challenge you are also taking part in WWF-UK’s Eat4Change campaign to encourage sustainable diets and join the fight for our planet.