Choose what you'll use and reduce household food waste.
In the UK, a household of four people wastes on average £1000 worth of food that could have been eaten every year, with fruit and veg being the greatest part of that wasted food.
One of the reasons for this is because fruit and veg is perishable and people buy too much to use up in time.
Helping people to simply choose what they’ll use by offering loose, and by removing Best Before dates across five key product lines (apples, bananas, broccoli, cucumber and potatoes) we could prevent:
- 100,000 tonnes of household food waste.
- 10,300 tonnes of plastic, saving a combined 130,000 tonnes of CO2e.
- If a wider range of products that are currently sometimes sold loose were only sold loose, it would save more than 21,500 tonnes of plastic.
- And save households money by avoiding costly wasted food.
Choose What You'll Use - Food Waste Action Week 2024
Our Food Waste Action Week campaign aims to raise awareness of the benefits of buying loose produce – inspiring citizens to ‘choose what you'll use’, and buy what they really need. It reduces food waste and reduces plastic packaging waste. Watch the film.
Unpacking fruit and veg: Behavioural insights study
Learn about the depth and breadth of UK consumers’ fresh-produce-purchasing behaviours and takeaway actionable insights.
Industry action.
In 2022 WRAP published research which gave three recommendations for retailers selling fresh fruit and veg. They were:
- Remove best before date labels
- Sell uncut fruit and veg loose
- Provide best practice guidance on storage
And in 2023 following extensive work with industry we published an industry backed Pathway to selling more uncut fruit and veg loose .
We have seen some good progress on removing best before dates on fruit and vegetables and we now need to see the same drive to sell more uncut fruit and veg loose and increase demand.
How are industry taking action?
Waitrose customer messaging trial
A new customer messaging trial at Waitrose aims to understand how signage and customer communications affect purchase behaviour of loose items.
"… during Food Waste Action Week we are running trials to understand how signage and customer communications influences purchase of loose fruit and veg… We are committed to help our customers reduce household food waste, with over 100 lines now packaging free. We look forward to sharing the results of the trials and continuing to help our customers choose what they will use."
Catherine Loader, Waitrose
