What should I do with my leftover Christmas food?

Food waste is a huge problem globally, on average 1.3 billion tonnes of food is wasted around the world each year, one-third of all the food produced according to the UN data. In the UK three-quarters of food waste was still edible when it was thrown out.

This problem always gets progressively worse during the Christmas period, most of us are guilty of buying additional food for our Christmas Day meals and other celebrations. WRAP estimates that 2 million turkeys and 74 million mince pies are wasted in the UK each December alone.

Food redistribution apps such as Olio hope to help deal with any additional surpluses. The app is free for households to use, while it charges supermarkets and restaurants a small fee.

Tesco supermarkets are one of Olio's customers, and in September 2020 the two launched a UK-wide initiative. Under the scheme, Olio volunteers, known as Food Waste Heroes, go to their local Tesco store to collect food that is nearing the end of its shelf life. Olio collects near end-of-life food and then redistributes it locally,  to individuals in need and community groups.

"In the past year alone, our partnership with Tesco's 2,700 stores has stopped more than five million meals from going to waste," says Ms Clarke.

Another app that helps firms reduce their food waste is Karma. It allows restaurants and cafes to list and sell their surplus food for collection at a discounted price.

The app claims that its community of more than 10,000 businesses and two million users have now saved more than six million food items from being thrown away.

An additional option is recycling, in some cases, food waste cannot be avoided and at Cawleys we are ready to help. We are not only highly experienced in food waste collection, we are also dedicated to employing the latest technologies to ensure your food waste is put to the best possible use. We ensure that the ethical disposal of food waste in this way is both reliable and low-cost to you.