Chefs Called Upon to Help to Stop Good Food Going to Waste

Written on 03-Jun-2019

Chefs and hospitality professionals are being urged to reduce the amount of food waste created by the industry. Are you making any changes to support the movement?

 At the time of writing this blog, we celebrated environmental activist David Attenborough’s 93^rd birthday, it was also national #PlasticFreeDay, and as a part of celebrating Ramadan, our very own Michelle and Stacie  decided to give up using plastic bottles in an attempt to help save the environment until the festival is over.

As an office, we love to get on board and help be as environmentally friendly as possible, so having found several fitting articles explaining a new government push asking for the help of Chef and hospitality professionals to reduce the amount of food waste made in the industry, you can bet we got very excited and we just couldn’t wait to share it.

What is the scheme about?

The ask has been made by a partnership between Environment Secretary, Michael Gove, and the government’s Food Surplus and Waste Champion, Ben Elliot.

Together, they have called on all UK food and hospitality professionals to support the drive to cut the 100,000 tonnes of food waste made each year by 50% by the year 2030.

The drive has been made ahead of a major symposium, which is to be hosted at the world famous V & A Museum in London next week, called ‘Step up to the Plate’, hosted by Gove and Elliot.

With the information being published by gov.uk, it explains how key players and professionals from the food and hospitality industry, along with social media influencers, have all been urged to come together, and pledge to help cut down the 100,000 tonnes of food waste made each year.

All attendees are expected to sign up to a variety of commitments and pledges outlining ways to reducing their businesses, and their own, food waste.

Minister Therese Coffey, and Gove, are among the first to sign the pledge. Gove has recently spoken about the issue, and the event, saying:

“Together, we must end the moral, economic and environmental scandal of food waste. The UK is showing real leadership in this area, but I urge businesses to join me in signing the pledge so we can bring about real change.”

He goes on to describe how “Every year, around 100,000 tonnes of readily available and perfectly edible food goes uneaten. It’s time to join together and ‘Step up to the Plate’ to stop good food going to waste.”

The pledges asks attendees to help reduce food waste by:

• Setting a target to halve food waste by 2030 in line with UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3.
• Adopting the WRAP and IGD Food Waste Reduction Roadmap to have half of all 250 of the UK’s largest food businesses measuring, reporting and acting on food waste by 2019.
• Embracing a Food Conversation week of action in November 2019 to highlight the changes we can all make.
• Using their voice and profile to empower and encourage citizens, including the younger generation.
• Changing their habits as an individual to be Food Value Champion at work and at home, buying only what they need and eating what they buy.

In addition to reducing food wastage, a pub in Cumbria, run by the National Trust, has become the first in the country to introduce putting the carbon footprint of each meal next to the item on the menu.

The aim is to make customers aware of just how many kilograms of greenhouse gases each meal makes, hopefully reducing the amount of greenhouse gases our food produces altogether.

With such an increase on changing our ways to benefit our environment, do we think these are all things we could get on board with? Will you be adapting, and making changes in your kitchen?

Written By Finola Walsh.

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