From Frugal Foundations to Fortified Family Future

Cheery_Daff

I was curious about that £80 a month figure so did a bit of digging. As you said @Greying_Pilgrim It seems to have come from WRAP (the charity). Their most recent ‘Household Food & Drink Waste in the UK 2022’ report (published in 2025, and which needs a thorough proofreading in my opinion) says that

‘The cost to householders of purchasing food waste was subsequently wasted in 2022 was £17 billion…. This figure equates to £260 per person each year, or £620 per household, or £1000 for a household of four’.

£1000 is £83 a month.

I was interested in how they got to that figure, but helpfully their report is very comprehensive! It only covers the edible parts of food (so not eggshells or animal bones etc). The category that’s most wasted is, unsurprisingly, fresh veg and salad, followed by meals (both home made and pre-prepared), then bakery.

Their report is actually quite interesting, and talks about how they measure

• What’s collected by local authorities (both in detail, and calculating an estimated total for the country)
• Food waste diaries and sewer waste diaries (so asking individual people to track)

For those figures above, I think they DO count what goes into home compost, but DON’T count food fed to pets.

Amounts are worked out by weight, then they calculate the cost of the edible portion of the food by category (using a specific database of food prices).

If you’re interested, there’s a 113 page report detailing their methods (which I confess I didn’t read :lol: )

There’s a separate report looking into reasons and patterns for food waste.

Nearly 90% of food waste comes from instances over 50g – there’s a really interesting section looking at the range in larger and smaller instances, and what they might do to discourage waste in each category (large instances are fewer, but make up a larger volume by weight).

Interestingly, 21% of all household food waste was discarded in its packaging, and almost half of those packets were 75% full (unsurprisingly lots of bakery and salad). Interestingly, from the food diaries, it seems that 30% of food was thrown out at evening meal time (cooked too much, people not finishing plates etc).

I realise I've used the word 'interestingly' about 75 times there :lol: Sorry for waffling on Greying, but thank you for prompting some fascinating digging and report reading.

(And now I should go back to what I'm supposed to be doing :lol: )

Cheery_Daff

Anyway, what I should have said was I was hoping the £80 would have been a wild and inaccurate over-estimation for the purposes of sensationalism, but unfortunately it seems to be rather closer to the truth 😥

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81880087#Comment_81880087

Cheery - those were both very interesting posts - thank you. I thought that if it was directly from WRAP, rather than say, from some media spin, that it would be "accurate" - in as much as these things can be when applying a test group result to the general populous. It's interesting that you say they've come up with possible remedies. Shops and food manufacturers seem to think shrinkflation and raising the prices is the answer, which hurts everyone, whether you scrape the butter paper clean, or not.

Hmmm, I guess we can only keep on doing what we're doing and do good when we can 😁

Greying X

badmemory

But how can they count how much food gets thrown into normal waste by people without the appropriate bin or frankly just can't be ars**.

Greying_Pilgrim

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81880133#Comment_81880133

But that's why the researchers did the 'proper' disposal of food, in the proper way - and that figure was still arrived at. For those of us that don't (routinely) throw as much food away, our £80 is made up of ^ types of disposal.

Greying X

kayannie

I can remember an incident from about 10 years ago which brought home to me the amount of food that is wasted.

Early one frosty morning, a few days after Christmas, I was walking my dog along a country lane, a couple of miles away from any houses. On the grass verge was a large pile of food that had been dumped.

All of it was from Mr M. There were several loaves of bread, dozens of unopened bags of fruit & veg & a huge bag of still frozen ice cubes!

I was very tempted to 'rescue' it, until I thought about the other dogs that had probably had a good sniff around it!

KA x

themadvix

Sorry, feel free to ignore the below and I apologise in advance for such a lengthy addition to your thread GP (I've tried not to rant, but I am passionate about this!)

There are two issues with food waste - the domestic waste (of £80/month) and the industrial one ('solved' by waste veg boxes, Olio etc.). And that's without even including the waste that happens before the food gets to the supermarket - having been rejected for being the wrong size/shape/flavour or a glut (which is also criminal). I think the only way to deal with the domestic situation is through better education - both of adults and of children in school through better 'home ec' (very old fashioned terminology but it's exactly what's needed - the ability to turn scraps into a meal, know what is safe and what is not safe to eat without relying on labelling etc.). For both age groups it goes along with better life education - financial, health etc. (Why is it that we all seem to be pretty well-educated on here, but the minority in the real world???) Yes, there will always be people who 'can't' for various reasons - health, small fussy children (but please do persist and make them less fussy!) etc., but these people cannot represent the average household and therefore the food waste issue could be vastly improved. (Were there any stats comparing the situation here with elsewhere in the world Cheery? I can't see any on a quick glance - but you can bet that the US is worse and most of Europe is better).

The second issue, of supermarket waste, annoys me intensely - they think they've solved the problem with Olio, TGTG and offloading their waste onto other local charities. This does not solve the problem in my view. Having been a Food Waste Hero (i.e. collector) for Olio, the sheer volumes of waste are obscene and cannot be handled by the redistribution through a few volunteers. I have picked up trays and trays of freshly baked rolls before now - the big brown plastic bakery trays. 9 of them on one occasion. And I only every did a couple of collections from that Tesco Extra because I physically couldn't fit the waste in a) my car and b) my kitchen. And that was just on one day from one store. I mostly limited myself to an Express store, which often filled my kitchen up plenty. And there was so much bread and pastries that I'd end up with it left over, even when giving it away free. If it was OK, I'd take some to the local homeless shelter, but I know they got fed up with people giving them carpy bread they couldn't use and then having to dispose of it. And M&S's solution of turning into garlic bread (along with the 15 other lines of it they sell) can only work so far - how much garlic bread does a society need (and I am a huuuuge fan of garlic bread!)?

This particularly applies to baked goods, which are very cheap to produce (because they are UPF and therefore not actually of any real benefit to anyone) and have a very short shelf life. But also because can anyone imagine going into a supermarket and not having a choice of 360-odd different bakery products. Imagine it, just being able to buy from a smaller selection? And accepting that if you go in at 8pm you might not have as much choice as someone who gets there first thing in the morning. As with single-use plastics, the key needs to be turning the tap off as well as redistributing it (or recycling it in the case of plastics).

As above, apologies…. it just makes me cross!

Greying_Pilgrim

Rant away love - this 'ere's the 'ome to debate and intell-eck-tual's according to Dear ed 😉

I don't disagree with anything you've said. I just think whenever a solution is proposed, folk will come up with 'Ah but's' - possibly I'm guilty of it myself. I would LOVE for 'old fashioned' home ec to be in schools, but times are different, we have different thoughts about sharp ouchy implements, we have different food intolerances, and ethos, and yes, plain old, likes and dislikes that have to be accommodated.

I don't remember getting asked if I wanted to eat the shepherd's pie I made in home ec, just like I don't recall getting asked if I minded making a pinny for said home ec, in the 6 weeks of needlework that preceded the home ec class…….. I honestly don't know how 'the system' can teach home ec, grocery budgeting, waste avoidance etc - there appears to be too many variables. What might work in LG's school, perhaps wouldn't work in a Cornish, rural primary, or a Junior school in Hull - who know's? I do think sometimes we humans are very good at building fences or obstacles, and not so good at just doing summat and seeing what happens. Invariably, the kids will surprise you - I remember an episode of Andi Oliver's community programme, in…….. Stoke? The kids were marvellous - really got stuck in. Fingers crossed there is positive legacy from that. But how to get universal coverage when home can't or won't pick up the baton is a difficult one.

Greying X

themadvix

Oh I'm not saying home ec shouldn't be modernised (cooking with the right allergy sensitive ingredients, maybe not making a pinny - but I bet the skills stood you in good stead), but we do all still need to know how to feed ourselves, on a budget, etc., rather than being able to 'design a pizza box' - which is what I learnt in food tech classes. There's so little common sense in the general population these days that I think things that were passed down from generation to generation just aren't there in so many cases to be passed down - so to improve the situation, school (in the absence of an alternative) has got to teach some of it. It's my generation that's lacking a lot of this knowledge I think - I was lucky to have my Nan teaching me 'home ec' stuff (Mum is good at some things, but Nan, who lived through the war was far better) - but I don't think a lot of my peers were so fortunate. And yes, knives are more of an issue but children still need to learn to use them safely (certainly something we taught at Brownies). (On the common sense front, I never ceased to be amazed at how many parents let their children get out of the car on the road side!). I think we're probably arguing on the same side here, just picking up on different bits! 😉

Suffolksue

Thinking long and hard how th phrase this

Many of the biggest ‘food wasters ‘ may not have the luxury of time ,there really are v few families these days who have the luxury of one parent being the homemaker whilst the other works .

Speaking from experience if you all get in after 5.30 and clubs etc are at 7 ,children are trying to tell you about their day ,you’re conscious that is important whilst trying to feed everyone ,maybe feeling guilty that you’re not all sitting down together to an ‘oxo family ‘ type meal then food will be wasted unless you are superhuman .

I am now a widow living alone ,my surviving child is 49 with teenagers of his own and it is just as chaotic .

Time is so valuable

No ,I ( and he ) didn’t work for the latest gadgets

My husband and I both worked to provide a home and one holiday in England a year .

Even now on my own there is waste mostly salad leaves but waste .

And yes I still feel guilty about my children’s lives ,but we did our best to and I’m sure some of the biggest food wasters are doing their best too

Sorry