Food waste don't wait

Waste not want not, or so the adage goes. When our food shops are bursting to rafters with super fresh and tasty produce. It often slips our mind that there is wastage. It's all laid out, rather deliberately, to draw us in. To make us feel good when we are spending our hard earned money. So how then, do they cope with all that food waste? It rather subtle, but they use little stickers.

Food waste synopsis

You may be wondering how you can play your part. Well it's quite simple or so it seems to me. We need too shop for as much reduced, or discount food as possible. We must also make sure that we use the food we buy effectively. That means learning the difference between use by and best before.

Use by dates means you must use the product by the date shown. No exceptions. This applies mainly to meat and dairy products. It is usually fine to freeze before the date shown but advisable to check the packet.

Best before means after the date shown the food will not be at it's best, but will still be safe to eat. For how long you will need to use your best judgement. This is generally foods such as bread.

As you can see there are important differences between the two. Make sure you understand the terms for you own safety. Eating expired food can be seriously bad for your health. So please be careful.

I wanted to utilize all this information to see what I could buy and in turn see what I could save. I first set my challenge as only eating reduced food for a whole month. However, it was hard to find to enough variety of reduced foods. With longer lasting foods being very hard to find, of course frozen foods with longer cell by date are easier for supermarkets to stock rotate.

My adjusted challenge; buy as much reduced food as possible. Hunting down the best deals this including all manner of fresh foods. It was my intention too photograph and document some of my finds. So, that is exactly what I did. You'll find below my best attempt at this challenge, some great finds and some real savings !

A whole months worth of buy to save

We start of with a British classic. To describe it to a foreign audience who could be unfamiliar. A small griddle cake made from a batter of milk, flour and yeast. Maybe a bit like a pancake ? Anyway, six of them for 67p which easily lasted three days. A best before date so no problems there.

Nothing to fancy here with the white bread. The muffins however, are another story. 'Chococcino' flavour. Coffee and chocolate, good combo. Both freeze-able as well.

A big saving on this. To be honest £4.05 is super expensive and over priced, but at this much reduced price point, it is a perfect cheat meal that can be stored in the freezer.

Being so cheap I just couldn't miss out ! Of course normal apples are usually better to buy, but this was a perfect little healthy snack. Combined with a chocolate yogurt. Balanced diet, am I right?

Can you actually believe you can walk into a modern day shop and buy something for just 14p ? Me neither, but here's the proof. So good I just had to buy three bunches. Spring onions are seriously underrated, great taste and go with a lot of dishes.

All those vegetables and with all those saving! I thought eating healthy was suppose to be expensive ? Lovely in a stir fry

Now time for some more vegetables in roll form. Yup, I like vegetables okay?

This was a tasty lunch to be fair that could of been eaten hot or cold. Usually a lunch meal deal will cost you £3.00 but this fed two very easily.

Not even food related but I managed to find another deal. This is my mothers favourite hand cream. I still have no idea why it was reduced.

No I am not carbohydrate loading .... Although it may look like it. More bread this time a half loaf , which if you don't need a full loaf the this can be a good way to reduced food waste. Also with added vitamin D that's pretty handy. Pre-made mash potato was down to one pound 'Reduced to clear' I thought it be a good way to make a cheat dish.

A little twist of French to conclude the highlight reel. A really rather zingy two slices of 'tarte au citron' for £1.90.

The numbers

Crumpets: Original price £1.00 saving of 33p

Bread (Full loaf): Original £1.00 saving of 43p

Muffins: Original £1.50 saving of 54p

Mac and cheese: £4.05 saving of £2.31

Apple: £0.35 saving of 18p

Yogurt: £0.75 saving of 38p

Spring onions(3 bunches): £1.35 saving of 93p

Spinach: £1.50 saving of 96p

Mixed vegetable packet: £1.50 saving of 96p

Spring rolls: £1.60 saving of 94p

Quiche: £2.70 saving of 89p

Half a loaf: £1.15 saving of 41p

Mash potato: £3 saving of £2

Vegetable somas(No picture): £2.00 saving of 44p

Tarte au citron: £3.25 saving of £1.35

The grand total of the normal price of these items would have been £26.70 with the reduced total coming to £12.09

That means I saved a handy £14.61

I saved that £14.61 on only 17 items

Saving money but is this really saving the planet ?

In the UK, 6.7 million tons of food is wasted per year at an cost of roughly £10.2 billion. Food waste is not just a waste of money but also massive unnecessary use of co2 emissions.

That is simply quite staggering and almost breath taking ,but who's fault is it then ?

Not all blame can be shifted on to consumers as we can see in the table above. We can see that more food waste is at the production and retail stages. Therefore, it is vital that we try our best to not waste the food we buy, but also aid in reducing the retail sectors waste. Buying reduced foods really is an easy way to save your purse and save the planet.

So there you are, you can have your cake and eat it, as long as it's reduced to clear.