Press releases

Influential Guardians of Grub Ambassadors, from across the UK Hospitality and Food Service sector, convened in London for a special roundtable summit organised by climate action NGO WRAP and hosted by BM Caterers. The meeting, held on Monday 23 January, agreed a set of actions to help the sector reduce its 1.1 million tonne food waste footprint.

We will not tackle the climate crisis without changing our consumption systems

Climate action NGO WRAP today publishes annual updates of its voluntary agreements for the food, plastics and textiles sectors. The publication comes with a stark warning that while the UK is making some progress in tackling key environmental issues, a lot more collaboration and action is needed from businesses to achieve the level of change required, and to keep climate goals within reach.

WRAP is pleased to announce that Kenwood, Lidl and Panasonic are confirmed sponsors for Food Waste Action Week (FWAW) 2023. Ocado Retail led the way becoming the first sponsor in August 2022.

• New study from WRAP and Hellmann’s shows that 42% of Australians say ^[1] they are throwing away the same amount of food or more per week than this time last year
• 1 in 3 Australians report they throw away the equivalent to one shopping bag of food per week, despite food waste costing the average Australian Household between $2,170 and $2,700 per year
• 1 in 2 Australians say they would value more support to be more resourceful with their food

• New study from WRAP and Hellmann’s shows that 45% of people say[1] they are throwing away the same amount of food or more per week than this time last year (AUS 42%, CAN 43% UK 48% US 47%).
• 1 in 3 people report they throw away the equivalent to one shopping bag of food per week, despite food waste costing families approximately £780 per year (ALL- 31% AUS 30%, CAN 29% UK 29% US 34%).
• 1 in 2 people say they would value more support to be more resourceful with their food (ALL- 47% AUS 49%, CAN 46% UK 44% US 48%).

Key news: ‘Win. Don’t bin.’ WRAP’s food waste campaign Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW), announces third annual Food Waste Action Week (FWAW) - the UK’s largest food waste behaviour change campaign aiming to cut household food waste, slash food shopping bills and save the planet. Ocado Retail becomes the first campaign sponsor.

When: Food Waste Action Week will run from Monday 6^th – Sunday 12^th March 2023.

On day two of the UK’s annual Food Waste Action Week (Tuesday 8 March), Resources and Waste Minister Jo Churchill joined Vince Kelly, culinary lecturer at Westminster Kingsway College and Guardians of Grub Ambassador and Catherine David, Director of Collaboration and Change at WRAP for a special tutorial to tackle the most wasted foods in the home

• With UK households wasting on average the equivalent of eight meals a week, (87,000 tonnes of food waste across all households in seven days), TV presenter Gregg Wallace joins Food Waste Action Week to help households get on top of food waste and spread the message Wasting Food Feeds Climate Change.
• To launch the week, Love Food Hate Waste will be revealing a shocking new installation showing the scale of UK household food waste from one single household over one year in the form of a 10ft food waste planet.**
• New survey finds the UK freezers contain UFOs (*unidentified frozen objects) with over a third of people admitting their freezer is sometimes a total disaster, and extremely hard to work out the contents. 19% of people threw away something frozen in the past two weeks because it has laid dormant for too long.
• Food Waste Action Week goes global with Weeks running simultaneously in Canada, the USA, South Africa, Australia and Mauritius.

WRAP and Behaviour Change to work together to scale up interventions that can help hit net zero goal through people power. 45% of UK emissions arise from the products we use and how we use them – behavioural change is a vital part of reaching net zero.

• 45% of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions relate to the things we buy, how we use them, and how we dispose of them – from food to fashion.
• By recycling, re-using items and cutting food waste, WRAP shows how we can give back to the environment this Christmas.