Love Food Hate Waste inspires 1 in 3 people nationwide to act on food waste

• Recognition for the Love Food Hate Waste campaign has doubled over the last 18 months.
• According to WRAP’s latest citizen survey, (tracking behaviours and attitudes related to wasted food), 1 in 3 people (31%) now recognise the Love Food Hate Waste logo, compared to roughly 1 in 5 (15%) in November 2018. Furthermore, those people are far more likely to adopt good food management behaviours having heard or seen Love Food Hate Waste messages.

This progress is a result of insight-led campaigns targeting specific behaviours that cause food waste. It is also a result of working in partnership with key organisations to reach a broad audience.

WRAP has already seen active participation in the Love Food Hate Waste campaign from a variety of brands, retailers, NGOs, and local authorities, including the UK’s leading potato supplier Albert Bartlett, whose packaging now includes the campaign logo. Partners see Love Food Hate Waste as providing ”added authority and credibility” to their messaging, and this collaborative action has contributed to the increased nationwide brand recognition. 

Now, WRAP calls on Courtauld 2025 signatories and others to help Love Food Hate Waste reach even more citizens. Rowing together, we have reached 1 in 3 people to waste less food; rowing harder and with more hands on deck, we can inspire even more people around the country in the months and years to come. 

Focus on fridge temperature

When reviewing citizen behaviours, the bi-annual WRAP survey picks out key habits which can enable people to waste less food at home (such as checking date labels, using their freezer, or making lists). Across the board, in the April 2020 survey, those who recalled seeing or hearing Love Food Hate Waste messages were more likely to undertake positive food management behaviours.

This is especially the case for messages related to fridge temperature. Communicated primarily through the Chill The Fridge Out campaign, this has been a key focus for Love Food Hate Waste since October 2018. WRAP identified that the average fridge in UK homes is set to almost 7°C, while food will last up to three days longer if this is reduced to below 5°C. 

Citizens who recall hearing this messaging are more likely than average to have checked or changed their fridge temperature in the last month. According to the April 2020 survey, 36% of those who have seen ‘Chill The Fridge Out’ had checked or changed their fridge temperature in the past month, compared to a national average of just 8%. 

Some 85% of those who adopted this behaviour considered it to have been a useful method for making their food last longer, demonstrating the useful role Love Food Hate Waste can play in citizens’ lives.

Further collaboration needed to create lasting change

Since WRAP launched Love Food Hate Waste in 2007, the brand has worked with a range of partners to communicate with citizens. From on-pack messages to web content and recipes, different organisations have helped to amplify these messages to enable more people at home to waste less food. We have seen citizens adopting positive behaviours during the early, unsettled lockdown period; as these unique circumstances develop, we believe there is a window of opportunity to inspire long-term change in the way people buy, shop, and eat, and we must work with others to achieve this.

Peter Maddox, Director of WRAP UK, said:

Collaboration is at the heart of what we do. It has helped us double how many people in the UK recognise Love Food Hate Waste, but to further increase how many people we can reach, we all need to do more. We know that 93% of people believe that “everyone, including me, has a responsibility to minimise the food they throw away”; this means that for every organisation (whether an existing or prospective partner for Love Food Hate Waste), your customers have a desire to know how they can waste less food. Our successful campaign is an effective way to communicate these vital messages, and we welcome support from across the sector.

Case study: Albert Bartlett potatoes

In December 2019, WRAP and Albert Bartlett worked together to communicate some key food waste messages on Albert Bartlett’s potato packaging. Potatoes are the most wasted food in UK homes, making them a key focus in WRAP’s work in citizen food waste. 

Albert Bartlett decided to include the Love Food Hate Waste logo on packaging, along with messages about food provenance, to encourage customers to waste less. Michael Jarvis, Head of Marketing at Albert Bartlett, said:

We worked with the team at WRAP to identify suitable steps we could take to help to reduce the problem.  We have talked up the issue on our social media and our bags also now contain text which underlines the time and care that goes into growing potatoes in order to encourage people to cut off any minor sprouts or blemishes and eat their potatoes as normal, in addition to emphasising that there is no need to peel potatoes before cooking. 

The addition of the Love Food Hate Waste logo gives added authority and credibility to the messages.