Our top tips to avoid food waste this festive season!
The festive season is a time to get together with loved ones to celebrate, share and of course eat delicious food! However, each year, over 42 million Christmas Dinners will be thrown away and most of us admit to buying more food than needed1. We want to share our top tips on how you can have a waste-free festive season and make the most out of your delicious food!
1. Plan your meals
To avoid the festive tradition of overbuying and overcooking, it’s important to think about the number of people that you will be cooking for as well as the number of meals you will be making. We’ve put together a ‘Festive Season Meal Planner’ and ‘Shopping List’ to help you with this.
2. Delegate food for friends and family to bring
Planning, preparing and cooking a festive meal can be a lot to organise for one person so why not share the load! Plan ahead and ask friends and family to bring a dish – not only will this prevent any duplication of the menu, it is also a fun way of sharing recipes and incorporating differing traditions into the meal.
3. Only buy what’s on your list
Shopping around the festive season can be quite overwhelming with the number of specials and offers available. It’s important to go to the shops with a plan and a list of what is required. We would also recommend against going to the shops when hungry as you are more likely to overbuy. Ticking items off your list as you go will help ensure you don’t overspend as well as avoiding any food going to waste.
4. Keep an eye on your fridge
Once you’ve planned and purchased all your food for the festive seasons, make sure these are all correctly stored. You don’t want your fridge getting too full that the air is not circulating or the food is getting forgotten about and going to waste. Make sure you know what is in there and create an ‘eat me first’ shelf if required and if necessary, freeze anything that you might not get a chance to eat.
5. Love your leftovers
Leftovers are one of the best parts of the festive seasons, if managed correctly! Try reliving a Christmas Meal on Boxing Day or perhaps following some of our fun leftover recipes below. Our best tip is to stay on top of the leftovers, if you do not think you will finish it all, why not portion it up and freeze it. Unsure on how to store the item, read more about freezing Christmas Leftovers here.
1 - https://www.businesswaste.co.uk/christmas-waste-facts-its-not-very-jolly/
