Check out Yeo Valley’s top tips for reducing food waste at home…
Think ahead
Plan your weekly food shop so you don’t over-buy food. When you’re planning, try to make sure you’re factoring in what you will need to eat first, such as salad leaves, and the best way to use up ingredients like crème fraiche or fresh herbs.
Pre-chop
Some recipes call for strange amounts of vegetables, leaving you with leftovers which are easy to forget about. So, before you end up trying to concoct a meal from some cheese, three half-lemons and something that might once have been a potato, chop up all your ‘extra veg’ while you’re making dinner and store in the fridge in an airtight container. Now you’ve made a stir-fry kit ready for tomorrow.
Buy wonky veg
Supermarkets are now doing their bit to reduce produce waste by loosening their ‘size and shape’ rules. Make their efforts worthwhile by making a beeline for the wonky veg. They taste the same and are every bit as good for you.
Don’t be a food hoarder
Freezers have long been the food waste pioneer’s best friend, but we’re all guilty of over-stocking the freezer and throwing away mysterious frozen food. Use up this stockpile by having ‘freezer Friday’. And if you’re really not going to use some of your unopened long-life goods, then a food bank will always be happy to give them a good home.
Use it – don’t lose it
It might be old-fashioned, but the ‘waste not, want not’ ethos is more important now than ever. So scrape every last bit out of your yoghurt pot and use it up in a homemade curry or pasta sauce. You can even make a yoghurt icing during some Sunday baking. The beauty of foods like yogurt is their versatility, so get thinking and get cooking.