Imaginative Teaching Resources & Inspirational Career Ideas from the Chilled Food Industry
We’ve been thinking about food waste with Tilly and Morgan. More than that – we’ve been studying waste and how we can make a difference by reducing our own food waste.
We’re keen to follow the example of the chilled food sector – which has not sent any food waste to landfill for more than a decade. Its waste goes for redistribution or to anaerobic digestion.
There are some amazing stats about the food waste from our homes. For example we found out that:
20 million slices of bread are thrown away each day in the UK – it would circle the earth from pole to pole 28 times!
3 million glasses of milk are thrown away each day!
You’ll find more facts like these on the Love Food Hate Waste website.
Using the Love Food Hate Waste activities we started to look at reducing our own food waste.
Here are our top tips to reduce food waste!
The potential waste: brown bananas
What do we do?
Once brown place in the freezer and use from frozen to make banana bread or smoothies
The potential waste: bread
What do we do?
We keep our bread in the freezer and use as needed.
The potential waste: milk
What do we do?
We buy 2 pint plastic bottles and keep in freezer and use as needed
The potential waste: leftovers
What do we do?
We freeze leftovers in take away boxes then use them as a packed lunch.
The potential waste: onions
What do we do?
We either buy frozen onions chopped or keep them in a fabric bag in the dark
The potential waste: potatoes
What do we do?
We keep in a cool dark place in a fabric bag to help them breath – not the plastic bag!
The potential waste: fresh ginger
What do we do?
We keep our ginger root in the freezer and grate from frozen – it makes it easier too!
The potential waste: wrinkly fruit 
What do we do?
We make crumble with wrinkly fruit!
What else can we do?
One way to reduce waste is to keep your fridge at the right temperature – bugs can’t thrive at less than five! Chilled food is kept fresh and at its peak quality in the fridge. But fridges have to be the correct temperature (0-5°C).
We checked our fridge temperature using Chilled Education’s fridge thermometer. These thermometers glow green when the temperature is correct. Love Food Hate Waste has more fridge facts on its website.
And at the end of the week we make fridge soup with all the wrinkly veg or we roast them – still useable and still tasty!