The average Irish household is wasting at least €1,000 worth of food every year, despite the fact that one in ten families are struggling to purchase nutritious meals for their brood.
Every year, we are tossing away millions of tonnes of wasted food according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
According to The Irish Independent, Safefood will launch a campaign in the upcoming weeks to educate Irish people on what is safe to eat.
A spokesperson for the organisation said: “Many of us are throwing away perfectly nutritious foodstuffs because we misinterpret labels such as ‘Best Before’ and ‘Display Until’ and assume items are no longer safe to eat.”
Shockingly, the research revealed that every family bins almost a third of the groceries they by, generating around 100kg per year of food waste annually.
On average, we bin half the salad, a third of the bread and a quarter of the fruit we buy.
It is not only households that are unnecessarily wasting food as it was revealed that one hospital wasted over €230,000 due to trays returning to the kitchen untouched by patients.
The EPA said that buying in bulk and a lack of planning was the cause of the sinful waste of food.
They also urged families to think realistically about their meals and not to buy fruit or vegetables that they are unlikely to eat.
