09 May 2008


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Broccoli stalk soup and spaghetti measurers

Consultant editor Fiona Briggs plans to reduce food waste to offset rising prices

Fiona Briggs: cutting back waste

My local garage has stopped displaying its petrol prices on the price pole.

It's a pain because I had to pull up at the pump to read the latest price increase this week before begrudgingly filling up.

I asked about the display omission at the checkout.

"There's not enough room for all of the numbers," was the reply.

Hilarious but, unsettling too. After all, the petrol giants clearly didn't bank on petrol prices reaching such highs as £109.9 per litre (the current rate for unleaded at my local garage) when they constructed their forecourts.

But petrol, as we all know, isn't the only commodity on the increase.

This week alone, prices of basmati rice are reported to have rocketed and sugar prices too are on an upward trend as production levels fall off.

Global rice prices have now risen by more than 50% since the start of the year.

A shrinking supply, meanwhile, has been accentuated by the cyclone in Burma, which hit the country's key rice growing region.

Countries including India, Thailand, Bangladesh and Egypt have begun to set limits on rice exports in a bit to contain domestic supplies and stem price rises.

This, in turn, is impacting the global rice market.

RS Seshadri, a director of leading rice supplier Tilda, told the BBC: "Banning the export of rice produces a domino effect across the world market, increasing the pressure on demand from those remaining countries whose markets are still open and causing inflation in countries reliant on imports.

"Increasing global demand and shrinking supply, combined with soaring production and distribution costs are simultaneously conspiring to create a 'perfect storm' of high basmati prices," he said.

In such a climate – economic and meteorological – new research published yesterday by WRAP, the government waste body, could not have come at a better time to call consumers to action.

It reveals UK households waste £10bn worth of food per year, £2m more than was previously estimated.

According to WRAP's study, The Food We Waste Today, the average household throws out £420 of good food a year, rising to £610 in those households with children.

Perhaps of greater concern, more than half of the food that is thrown out is bought and left unused and untouched.

To put some flesh on those bones that includes 1.3m unopened yogurt pots, 5,500 whole chickens and 440,000 ready meals, which are thrown away each day in the UK.

In addition, £1bn worth of food that has not passed its use by date is chucked into the bin too.

The numbers, as WRAP no doubt intended their release to be, are shocking.

Liz Godwin, WRAP chief executive, said: "What shocked me the most was the cost of our food waste at a time of rising food bills, and generally a tighter pull on our purse strings.

"It highlights this is an economic and social issue, as well as about how much we understand the value of our food.

"Tackling the problem of food waste will be at the heart of WRAP's work over the next three years."

Environment Minister Joan Ruddock added: "These findings are staggering in their own right, but at a time when global food shortages are in the headlines this kind of wastefulness becomes even more shocking.

"This is costing consumers three times over. Not only do they pay hard-earned money for food they don't eat, there is also the cost of dealing with the waste this creates.

"And there are climate change costs to all of us of growing, processing, packaging, transporting, and refrigerating food that only ends up in the bin.

"Preventing waste in the first place has to remain a top priority. WRAP's advice on the changes everyone can make to ensure they cut their own waste – and their own bills – makes sense all round."

I agree, and I've checked out WRAP's website and the hints and tips from its Love Food Hate Waste campaign.

There's some good stuff there on portion control (spaghetti measurer anyone?), meal planning, use by and best before dates, store cupboard essentials plus tips to make the most of the food we buy.

There are also recipes from top chefs and WRAP's supporters for left overs and odds and ends.

Think I'll pass on the broccoli stalk soup though (with apologies to Irene Pizzie from Stoke on Trent).

But I will take some of the ideas on board – at least so I can pull confidently onto the garage forecourt, petrol prices unseen.

PS Thanks to Erith-based MH Foods for the free-from and healthy products submitted to assist my 'veggie week' – looming.

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