Food Waste Action Week 2025

FOOD WASTE ACTION WEEK MAY BE OVER, THE ACTION CONTINUES

 

A large brown paper sack of potatoes with the top open. The bottom 20% is in red with the word ‘chuck’ on it. The top part has ‘use’ on it. There are a few loose potatoes around the base. The words at the top say ‘Almost 20% of food purchased in the Hospitality and Food Service sector ends up in the bin. At the bottom it says Buy only what you need. Waste less. Plus www.GuardiansOfGrub.com. The Guardians of Grub black logo is in the bottom right corner.

Thank you to everyone who took part in Food Waste Action Week 17 – 23 March.

We all joined together and made a lot of noise to drive action to tackle food waste across our Hospitality and Food Service sector.

You got your thinking aprons on, dusted off those note pads, and inspired your teams to get involved.

You shared lots of examples of how you were implementing Target-Measure-Act as part of your everyday food operations, plus lots of top tips on how to take action and all your events taking place to inspire other businesses and organisations to kick start their journey.

Thank you!

BUYING ONLY THE FOOD YOU NEED

Our theme this year was ‘Buy only the food you need, avoiding the ‘just in case’ purchases.’

Why? Almost 20% of food purchased by our sector is binned.

This is not only a waste of money spent on the food but also the energy and resources used to grow, produce and transport our food.

THE HUMBLE SPUD

23% of total food waste from the Hospitality and Food Service sector is from potatoes.        193k tonnes of potatoes that were binned, every year, could have been eaten.

Our food hero for the week was the ‘potato’.

This is the most wasted food across our sector so we gave potatoes some love and showed why we should value our food.

Did you know that 23% of total food waste in the Hospitality and Food Service sector is from potatoes?

To look at this another way, the sector throws away 193k tonnes of potatoes that could have been eaten, every year.

YOU CAN STILL INSPIRE YOUR TEAMS TO TAKE ACTION

The campaign may be over, however, our challenge to prevent the 1.1 million tonnes of food being wasted across the sector continues.

Consider how much money you’ll save by cutting unnecessary food costs and saving food from the bin.

Get together with your team to chat about the challenges that are preventing you from buying what you need and explore practical solutions that will help you resolve these challenges.

  • What can you all do to ensure that your business/organisation uses all the food you’ve bought?
  • How can you ensure that your food operational processes all link up so that you are only buying the food you need?

Think about different ways to inspire your team and the wider business/organisation to bring these solutions to life during Food Waste Action Week.

 

CREATE YOUR BUSINESS CASE FOR ACTION

In a few easy steps, use our Savings calculator to take a look at how much money you could save by simply reducing your food waste. It’s a great tool for creating your business case and setting your targets. It also shows carbon equivalent savings too.

CALCULATE YOUR SAVINGS
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INVESTING IN YOU AND YOUR TEAM

Take this free Cost savings course online to learn the principles of Target-Measure-Act. In under 30 minutes, you’ll gain the tools, knowledge and skills you need to cut costs and achieve your food waste reduction targets.

CUT COSTS & SAVE FOOD
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Hungry for more?

Have you started your food waste prevention journey and would like to make a more formal commitment to keep on track? Or would you prefer to make a commitment first to kick-start your journey? Signing up to our WRAP UK Food Waste Reduction Roadmap is your perfect next step (no fees). Sign up today by following the link below.

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