Research has shown that Bexley residents are throwing away 32% of their food every year.* Food waste reduction is key to reducing our impact on the environment and is a very serious issue with UK households throwing away 6.6 million tons of food waste a year, almost three quarters of that being food we could have eaten. It’s estimated that the average family can save up to £720 a year by cutting down on food waste.**
The Bexley Household Food Waste Project launches today and will run through to the summer. Residents are being encouraged to download and use the two free apps focused on food waste prevention (Kitche) and redistribution (OLIO).
OLIO is an app that connects neighbours with each other, so food and household items can be shared, not thrown away. In just five years, OLIO has grown into a global movement with over 5.6 million users in 62+ countries, who have together shared over 43 million portions of food. At its heart, OLIO is all about good people doing good things, and it believes that small actions plus lots of people can equal a massive change.
Kitchen is a free app that offers users helpful food reminders, tips, food waste tracking and encourages people to eat what they buy and buy what they’ll eat. Kitche works to reduce waste from inside people’s kitchens and makes it easier than ever before to manage food at home, saving money and reducing food waste all within one app. People can import food from their shopping receipt which provides a real-time digital version of their kitchen products for use on-the-move and for recipe creation at home. www.kitche.co
The Project will be a rolling one and there will be activities throughout to promote, it to Bexley families culminating in the Bexley Eco festival at the end of June which will be a face-to-event at the NEST in Thamesmead.
Quote from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation:
Josh Newton, Cities Manager at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation
“Cities around the world are recognising that a circular economy for food can unlock multiple benefits for people and nature. To get there, we need leaders to empower residents to value the food they eat, and prevent waste. Bexley’s project is an exciting example of bold thinking by local government, working in partnership with circular innovators to help households save money, reduce waste, and address the climate crisis at the same time.”
Quote from OLIO: Tessa Clarke, co-founder and CEO of OLIO, said: “Last year was incredibly important for sustainability, with COP26 putting climate change firmly on the worldwide news agenda. As a country, we’re definitely becoming more conscious about the impact our behaviour has on the planet – but our work is far from done. Food waste is still at a dangerously high level, which is why initiatives like this are so important. We can’t wait to see the impact this programme has in Bexley, and hope that more councils follow suit in the very near future.”
Quote from Kitche: “With food inflation at 4.2% *and emissions from food waste equivalent to a ⅓ of all cars in the UK, **It’s more critical than ever that we work together with councils to help people manage their food consumption habits. We look forward to pioneering with Bexley to show how apps like Kitche and OLIO provide the most scalable and efficient means of driving behaviour change in the kitchen. (Alex Vlassopulos, Co-Founder & CEO of Kitche)
