You breader believe it! The Food Waste challenge is launching and rolling out across three London Boroughs this month – Havering, Kingston and Waltham Forest. Now you might think “that’s a bit munch”, “wheat’s in it for me?”, “I don’t carrot all”, or “I donut want to get involved”, but we think it’s incredibly eggciting and we’re looking forward to seeing some fantastic results in food waste reduction.
But – puns aside – food waste is a chronic issue in the UK, with 1 in 3 of us throwing away a banana with a minor bruise or black mark on the skin and households throwing away 40% of the bagged salad they buy every year. WRAP estimates that 4.2 tonnes of perishable food is wasted or lost each year – that’s as much as £700 a family.
Most of this waste stems from our mind-set when it comes to food. While it’s tempting to blame supermarkets, research has shown that only 1% of all food waste comes from our supermarket and almost 7.3 tonnes comes from family households. So what can we do? Our Food Waste Challenge sets out to tackle just that: The Food Waste Challenge is our innovative new programme that will motivate members of our Jump (Local Green Points) schemes to reduce their household food waste. The dynamic challenge will engage members in smarter shopping habits, better portion control and using up leftovers, as well as participating in a food recycling service where that’s provided, by mixing an online platform, video content and targeted digital communications. Members will also receive rewards for cutting down their food waste, such as vouchers from popular high street brands including iTunes and M&S.
As with all our schemes, we know that by rewarding members for positive sustainable behaviours we can create long lasting behavioural change. At Jump (Local Green Points), we work with local councils to incentivise sustainability and wellbeing through rewarding residents involved in our schemes with individual and community prizes for wasting less and recycling more. Local Councils, such as Bexley, Kingston and Waltham Forest work with us to engage residents in better recycling practises. We are also experts at delivering door-to-door engagement campaigns to educate residents.
So if you think you’re up to the challenge why not find out if the Food Waste Challenge is coming to an area near you!
