“How can we reduce our food waste?” was the question posed by IFNH at the Berkshire Show 2018.
“What’s in your basket?” was the theme of The University of Reading’s exhibit at this year’s Berkshire Show. It gave visitors a closer look at several aspects of agriculture and food, with the IFNH running a stand themed around food waste and the ways we can all do our bit to tackle the issue. It was made up of 6 stands in total, focusing on various aspects of food and agriculture, ranging from food processing, pollination and pesticides, to the history of the shopping basket and food colouring.
The IFNH stand focused on the issue of food waste and aimed to demonstrate the size of the problem, with 53% of total food waste produced in households. We highlighted the most wasted foods here in the UK, which are bread, potatoes and bananas, and asked people to think about their habits at home, providing tips to help solve the issue of food waste.
We asked people to vote what the key solution to reducing food waste in their home would be – planning before shopping for food, using up leftovers, reducing portion sizes, or being better informed about storing food.
We handed out recipes cards to inspire people to use leftover vegetables to make soup and turn overripe bananas into banana muffins. We also handed out banana, cinnamon and oat smoothies as a suggestion for using up excess ripe bananas.
People responded well to these messages, understanding that food waste is a serious problem. Visitors were surprised that households were contributing so much to the issue of food waste. The voting exercise showed that most people believed planning and using leftovers to be the most important solutions to improving the problem.
Thank you to all the volunteers who helped make this event a big success!
— IFNH (@UniRdg_IFNH) 17 September 2018