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The Planet

Mon, Mar 15, 2010

Tips on planning your family's weekly shop

Do you find that buying the same food each week leaves you throwing the same things out?

Then it could be time to refresh your shopping tactics!

  • Before you do your next weekly shop take a look in your store cupboard and plan some meals around the basic ingredients you already have.
  • Keep an eye on ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ labels to make sure you don’t throw food out that could be used.
  • Make sure you store food correctly so that it stays fresh as long as possible.
  • If your fresh food goes off midweek buy two smaller batches rather than one.
  • Look for items with a long shelf life to give you more chance to use it.
  • Write up a weekly meal planner and try to make some home cooked meals from scratch.
  • Buy food loose so you can buy exactly what you need.
  • Go back to the days of ‘waste not - want not’ and learn how to cook ‘left-over meals’ like bubble and squeak.
  • Write a shopping list and stick to it!

Visit the Love Food, Hate Waste website to find out more about loving food and reducing your household food waste – remember you could save £410 in a year.