WASHINGTON — People in the United Kingdom used to waste 8.3 million tons of nutritious and safe to eat food each year, and Liz Goodwin was disturbed.
Calling herself “totally passionate about food waste,” Goodwin, as CEO at the Waste and Resources Action Programme, in 2007 led one of the most comprehensive analyses of household food waste ever conducted to determine how much consumable food was being thrown away in the U.K. and what could be done about it.
Following that research, WRAP rolled out a two-pronged approach aimed at reducing food waste by making it easy for people to understand its negative impacts. A U.K.-based consumer campaign showed people how much money they were wasting by allowing food to go bad, an incentive to change their habits. This required giving people tips on how to buy only the food they are able to eat before it goes bad, how to use up leftovers, advice for storing food properly to maximize its shelf life, and educating people on how to properly read date labels.