Nearly half of all fresh potatoes thrown away daily by UK households
This is a colossal waste and something which should be addressed as a matter of priority building on the great work of organisations such as the Real Junk Food Cafe
Nearly half of the edible fresh potatoes bought by UK householders each day are thrown away – nearly 2.7 million of them per day, and at a “staggering” annual cost of £230m, figures show.
The humble spud is the second most wasted food in the UK, behind bread, according to new official figures released on Wednesday. The new research was offered in support of a government campaign to encourage consumers to reduce their domestic food waste.
Half of us chuck potatoes in the bin because we don’t get round to them using in time, yet once wrinkly skins, green patches and “sprouts” are removed they are still edible, said Love Food Hate Waste, which is run by the government’s waste advisory body Wrap.
The UK churns out 15m tonnes of food waste a year – of which 7m tonnes come from households. The estimated retail value of this is £7.5bn, and Wrap calculates that a typical family wastes £700 of food a year.Its new Save Our Spuds campaign aims to raise awareness of the vast scale of potato waste and its impact on the environment and our pockets, as well as offering top storage tips, potato rescue remedies and recipe suggestions to use up potatoes before they go bad and are inedible. Correct storage can keep potatoes fresher for longer, it said, giving more time to come up with meal ideas to use them.