North London Waste Authority (NLWA) is offering north London residents a chance to learn more about how to store their food to make it last longer over the hot summer months and in return enter into a prize draw to win one of two £350 travel vouchers. With this summer being so particularly hot and long, NLWA is keen to encourage residents to save themselves money and reduce their food waste by storing fresh produce in the best possible way.
The range of ideas using the title banner ‘Chill out this Summer’ is brought to north London residents via NLWA’s social media profiles and encourage residents to understand whether foods are best kept in the fridge, freezer or worktop. Chilling food in the fridge or freezer can help keep it fresher for longer; so to help north London residents ‘chill out’ as well, if they correctly guess the best way to store a particular food item, they can enter a weekly prize draw with the chance to win a £350 travel voucher.
The competition can be entered every weekday between 8am and 5pm from Monday 23 July 2018 to Friday 3 August 2018. Residents can enter the weekly prize draws via North London Waste Authority’s ‘Wise Up To Waste’ social media profiles on either Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.
This idea, from NLWA, is to help north London residents reduce their food waste over the summer which ultimately helps them save money. The weather has been so hot and fresh produce can go off a lot quicker if it is not stored correctly. This can contribute to the £15 billion annual cost of food waste in the UK, according to WRAP[1].
The average family household in the UK could save about £60 a month[2] by reducing their food waste.
Councillor Clyde Loakes says, “Just one small change can help reduce food waste at home but also help north Londoners save money. The fridge and freezer are fantastic at helping reduce an individual household’s food waste especially during the summer with so much fresh produce around. Reducing your food waste is one of the biggest things you can do to help the environment and to help you save money.”
As well as keeping your food fresher for longer, when buying fresh ingredients, North London Waste Authority also recommend:
- Planning to use them in meals that you will cook sooner rather than later;
- Planning a meal the following day that has those same fresh ingredients;
- Considering using up all the fresh ingredients by making extra portions and freezing some for another day;
- Considering whether you can freeze any of the fresh ingredients if you don’t use them all; and
- Checking your fridge is below 5ºC, ideally 3 ºC.
More details on tips for storing food, the ‘Chill Out This Summer’ campaign, and terms and conditions for the competition are all available at wiseuptowaste.org.uk/chilloutthissummer.
[1] WRAP Resources 2018 http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Household%20food%20waste%20restated%20data%202007-2015.pdf
[2] WRAP 2015 resources http://www.wrap.org.uk/sites/files/wrap/Household_food_waste_in_the_UK_2015_Report.pdf
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