Food waste and its effect on the economy ETC.

In July of this year, The Goverment was to launch a campaign to demolish Britain's food waste mountains as part of a global effort to curb the ever rising food prices.

It was brought to the attention the excessive amount of food thrown away in Britain while other, less fortunate countries in the world are left starving. Due to poor processing, Transport and storage, Up to 40 % of groceries can be lost which is an extremely excessive amount. Due to this, Supermarkets have been encouraged to prevent bulk-buying by placing special offers such as two for one or three for two.

It has been said in a cabinet office report that UK households have the ability to save an average of £420 per year, providing we do not throw away the 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten, instead of wasted.

After a 10 month reveiw enforced by the goverment, There were some factors that became prominant:

1) All around the world food prices have risen over the past few years due to poor harvests, high costs for energy, fertilises and transport, a long term high demand for grain to feed growning global population

2) compared to to the 16% of household expenditure on food in 1984, the average household within the UK spends 9% which is an improvement, however, the poorer 10% households spend 15% of their expenditure on food because they are buying the necessities such as milk, bread and eggs which have seen a rise in money. The richest 10% of households spend just 7%

3) the poorer countries are spending 50% to 80% due to the increase in global food prices.

so based on the data collected for England and Wales in the past year it is estimated that the households across the UK are needlestly throwing away 10.2 billion and over 3.6 million tonnes of food waste every year which is something that can be avioded.

SO HOW CAN WE HELP STOP THIS?

There are many diiferent ways of reducing food prices, for example, in the case of packaging technologies, using oxygen scavengers, interactive films and resealable packaging, increasing shelf life products, modified atmospheres.

Or as the campaign 'Love food Hate waste' campaign looks to raise awareness of the waste and how changing this will benefit us all and the enviroment. Consumers can look for useful tips and tools, recipes and comments from celebrities and food writers.

After researching into food waste, I can already see that perhaps there is something within the kitchen that can help reduce food waste. But first I will need to look at the causes of food waste.