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Retailers aim to slay packaging myths in war on food waste
March 6, 2013
Retailers aim to slay packaging myths in war on food waste
The UK’s food waste mountain is being made worse by consumers’ failure to follow storage advice and their misplaced confidence in their ability to prolong the life of popular food stuffs.
That is the conclusion of a major survey of 4,000 consumers undertaken by waste advisory body WRAP, which found 61 percent of people mistakenly believe that removing food from packaging will extend its lifespan, despite the opposite being true. The survey revealed that people have a high degree of confidence in how they store their food, which means that only 22 percent look at retailers’ guidance on how to best store food to maximize life spans, while only 13 percent regard packaging as having a useful protective role to play in the home.
WRAP will launch a new campaign alongside the survey, warning that a failure to store food properly was one of the key contributors to the UK’s £6.7 billion a year food waste mountain, which costs the average consumer £270 a year and leads to significant levels of greenhouse gas emissions.
“We want to demystify some of the myths that have attached themselves to food and packaging. As a result, we’re working with groups from across the industry to try and promote behavior change,” says a spokeswoman from WRAP.
Read more at Business Green.
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