Nestlé UK& I is supporting the UK’s first national week of action to tackle household food waste and help drive home the message, wasting food feeds climate change.
Food Waste Action Week taking place between 1st-7th March, is run by WRAP to highlight the devastating impact food waste has on the planet.
Nestlé UK&I has joined 40 partners from retailers, food manufacturers, hospitality and food service businesses to local authorities and electrical manufacturers, to raise awareness of food waste.
When it comes to food waste at home, UK households produce around 70 per cent of the UK’s 9.5 million tonnes of food waste every year.
To raise awareness, WRAP has teamed up with chef, TV presenter and Great British Bake-Off winner Nadiya Hussain, to call on people to take part in the Food Waste Action Week Challenge and make sure no edible food ends up in the bin. Nadiya will spearhead a week of activities offering tips and tricks to cut waste, simply.
In total, a staggering 6.6 million tonnes of food waste comes from our homes each year in the UK, at a cost of £14 billion. Of that, 4.5 million tonnes is food that could have been eaten, which works out to around eight meals per household each week*. This ‘edible’ element of household food waste is responsible for 14 million tonnes of Co2e alone - as much greenhouse gas produced as flying from London to Perth more than 4.5 million times.
Globally, around a third of all food produced is lost or wasted, which contributes between 8 and 10 per cent of total greenhouse gas emissions.
Nestlé UK&I CEO, Stefano Agostini, said: “With food worth more than £19million and which contributes to more than 25 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions going to waste in the UK each year, it is crucial that we accelerate collective action on food waste.
“Food Action Waste Action Week provides a fantastic opportunity for organisations to come together to shine a light on the scale of the food waste challenge we face and how we can all take action, whether in the field, the factory, the supermarket or at home, and play a role in tackling climate change,” said Agostini.
Andy Griffiths, Head of Value Chain Sustainability Nestlé UK&I, said: “Food waste is a crucial issue and we’ve been working to reduce food waste for a number of years. Since 2016, we have reduced food waste in our operations by 41%. We have achieved this through a number of activities.
“We have utilised our ‘Waste Not, Want Not’ food waste audit process to identify the primary sources of food waste and take action to minimise these causes. We have also been repositioning our engagement strategy to draw out the importance of food waste in the everyday lives of our employees and help them understand the impact their actions can have,” added Griffiths.
To take part in the Food Waste Action Week Challenge, people are encouraged to share their top tips on Instagram using #FoodWasteActionChallenge and @lfhw_uk - from storing food, using up leftovers and making sure none of it ends up in the bin.
*Based on 4.5 million tonnes of wasted food, 420g meal weight and 27,576,000 households