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Brown Calls On Britons to Stop Wasting Food
Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called on British people to stop wasting food in a bid to tackle the increasing cost of living.
Mr Brown argued that "unnecessary" food purchases were exacerbating rising food prices. He urged consumers to store food more effectively and plan ahead for meals.
While debt advice from the prime minister might seem a bit hypocritical, planning meals allows people in the red to make a proper budget every week and help with their debt management.
According to a Cabinet Office study, British households waste some 4.1 million tonnes of perfectly edible foodstuffs each year, which adds some £420 to annual grocery bills.
The Government report on food policy said that in the developing world, up to 40 per cent of food harvested is often lost before it can be consumed because of inadequate forms of food processing, transport and storage.
The 10-month study also warned that the average British household chucks away around £8 of leftovers every week, despite spending 9 per cent of its gross income on foodstuffs.
The poorest 10 per cent of households spend 15 per cent of their income, however, compared to the wealthiest 10 per cent, who hand over just 7 per cent.
Furthermore, poorer households also fork out more as a proportion of their income on staples like bread, milk and eggs, all of which have undergone massive price rises in the past few months.
The study went on to warn that further research is necessary to find out whether the hugely increased production of biofuels will cause a further increase in food prices.
Sustain, an umbrella group of organisations campaigning for better food and farming practices, urged the supermarket giants to stop promoting unnecessary purchases, such as two-for-one deals.
The group said that such deals lead to too much food "going to waste.”
Debt Management News posted on 29 July 2008
