The issue of food waste continues to stimulate discussion and debate, and not just here in the UK.

Only yesterday, there was wide coverage of the EU’s desire to halve food waste by member states by 2025 (the EU estimates that around 89 million tonnes of food is wasted each year).

Of course, this topic is close to WRAP’s heart and just three months ago, we were able to release our latest research which showed that the amount of household food waste had fallen from 8.3 million tonnes a year to 7.2 million tonnes. Clearly we still have a long way to go, and that’s why I’m always pleased to hear about initiatives which can have a positive impact on the amount of food we buy and waste.

Just this week for example, Riverford Organic Veg launched a new, free i-Phone app which invites users to try its ‘fruit machine’ approach to searching out recipes.  Got a butternut squash, a few mushrooms and a handful of tomatoes which need to be used up?  Input the items into the app and let it suggest some possible recipes for you. This is a great way of being creative with your purchases and discovering new recipes, too. And you don’t need to be a Riverford customer to benefit from its huge bank of recipes.

At the same time, Zero Waste Scotland (WRAP’s delivery arm in Scotland) has its own free Android-based app offering advice on portion sizes and meal planning, as well as its own store of recipes.

Of course, there’s also the Love Food Hate Waste website which offers a whole range of tips, tricks and support for cooking, shopping and storing food.

It isn’t only reducing household food waste that presents us all with a challenge. The hospitality sector, too, offers scope for improvement.  WRAP estimates that food and drink waste from pubs, restaurants, take-away outlets and hotels, costs around £724m a year.  We’re currently working with representatives from across the sector to develop a voluntary agreement that will help business reduce both food and packaging waste, and plan to launch this in the spring.

Food waste isn’t only an issue about landfill, C02 emissions or how much it costs each of us when we buy food and throw it away. It ties into the much wider debate about sustainability of our resources in the longer term. Which in turn, links to the even bigger topic of resource security, covering all kinds of raw materials, from minerals and wood, to cotton and petroleum. 

Governments the world over are becoming increasingly concerned about how to better manage the earth’s finite resources, and Defra is due to launch its own Resource Security Action Plan in the near future.  EDIE.net recently ran an interview with Secretary of State Caroline Spelman on this topic and you can be sure you will be reading a great deal more on this in the coming weeks and months.