UK HOUSEHOLDS COULD GET 2 ½ DAYS A YEAR BACK…

By making the most of the food they buy

UK HOUSEHOLDERS could unlock a long weekend of free time a year – by embracing Food Waste Action Week’s ‘Win. Don’t Bin’ theme.

JORDAN BANJO joins forces with Love Food Hate Waste to help households to reduce their food waste.

TO MARK THIS YEAR’S WEEK OF ACTION, Love Food Haste Waste is calling time on food waste by using a giant egg timer to bring to life the time people could get back by using up their uneaten food – saving them money as well.

To mark the third annual Food Waste Action Week, which launched on 6 March, new research from Love Food Hate Waste has revealed that time-strapped people could get back 2 ½ days a year by using up uneaten food.1 This equates to treating ourselves to a weekend away with friends or family or having enough time to binge-watch a whole series of Love Island and still having ‘me’ time to go to the gym or out for a long walk!

According to a poll of 2,000 adults, the nation dedicates an average of five hours a week to preparing and cooking food, but a quarter (24%)2 often feel they waste their time doing this when so much of it ends up in the bin. In fact, WRAP data suggests a whopping 25% of the food we cook ends up wasted because we

1 2.5 days saving calculated as follows:

Average minutes spent cooking/preparing food per HH = 44.3

Average minutes spent reheating leftovers per HH = 7.1

Average HH generates leftovers from meals twice a week

‘prepare, cook or serve too much’.3

If given those hours back, people said they would spend the time reading (38%), enjoying well deserved ‘me time’ (35%) or with their family and friends (31%).

The poll also revealed that a whopping 80% of people feel guilty about throwing food away and 70% would be more likely to use their leftovers if they could turn them into something tasty. People also said they were using energy-efficient microwaves (78%), slow cookers (26%) and air fryers (23%) more often to save money. And with meals generally taking just seven minutes to re-heat on average, Love Food Hate Waste is calling on the nation to ‘Win. Don’t Bin.’

44.3-7.1=37.2mins people can get back if they simply reheat their uneaten food and not cook from scratch. Based on the same figure and the average meal leftovers per typical week which is 2 per HH, we can also say that people could save more than 70 minutes a week by simply reheating those meals.

70 mins x 52 weeks = 3,640 mins a year = 60.6 hours = 2.52 days

2 All statistics, unless otherwise referenced, taken from nationally representative OnePoll survey of 2,000 UK adults undertaken on behalf of WRAP, 15-17 February 2023.

3 https://wrap.org.uk/sites/default/files/2021-10/food-%20surplus-and-%20waste-in-the-%20uk-key-facts-oct-21.pdf