Call to continue with lessons of lockdown

Lockdown meant most of us were cooking more and wasting less food. Brian Stormont finds out if we are likely to keep up these ‘food smart’ habits

As we move out of lockdown, has making shopping lists, using up leftovers and store cupboard items and planning meals resulted in a reduction in food waste?

It seems it has. A survey of people’s food habits and behaviours in the UK by Wrap (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) reveals they have risen to the challenge of lockdown by falling in love with food again – making what they buy last longer and go further resulting in less wasted food.

As a result of supermarkets operating strict social distancing rules, restaurants being closed and many of us at home all day, our food shopping habits have shifted significantly – we are shopping less frequently and buying more items.

But, the sur vey has revealed, households have become more resourceful in managing their food, from using up their cupboard stocks, meal planning and list making, to freezing more and batch cooking.

These “food smart” behaviours should lead to less food ending up as waste. Of four of the key food items people waste most – potatoes, bread, milk and chicken – this latest survey shows that respondents are reporting a 34% drop in how much they throw away.

The encouraging results confirmed that this “new normal” in the way we manage our food presents an opportunity for the nation to cement these behaviours in the future and re-evaluate our relationship with food.

With wasted food costing us billions every year and associated with millions of tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions, this is good news for our economies and the environment.

At Zero Waste Scotland, they took a decision to change tact, moving away from their climate change message in an effort to help people during tough times.

The organisation’s Sue Roberts says: “We realised the information we had could be of great use to people.

“We put our usual climate change messaging aside for a little bit and concentrated on putting out information that would help people. That information was around lists and planning, but we also put out a lot of recipes and information about using different foods, such as ingredients you could substitute for another and interesting things that could help people remain calm and also help them to avoid waste.

“What we found was that people were looking for comfort food. Our most popular recipes were 15-minute carbonara, lentil bolognese, fish pie, fish cakes, banana bread – quite homely food.

“We did a nice set of videos with Gary Maclean, Scotland’s national chef, at home with his kids, and they were really popular. We also did a lot of work with the batch lady, Suzanne Mulholland, who showed how to make a number of meals at the same time and how to store them.

“We also had a lot of inquiries about storage. People don’t know you can freeze butter, milk or cream. We have an A-Z of storage which shows you anything you want to store and how to store it.”

And young families and single people engaging with the organisation’s message is hugely important when it comes to the subject of food waste.

Sue continues: “The biggest natural wasters of food are young families. A busy lifestyle and smaller kids does not make for an easy meal time.

“Young families and young single people are big food wasters because they have less predictable lifestyles and less interest in planning their food. To get them on board and engaged was marvellous for us.

“We discovered that cost and tr ying to achieve some normality seem to be people’s priorities during lockdown, but new data coming from Wrap suggests things may be changing again.”

However, as life begins to return to some sort of normality after the coronavirus lockdown, people will revert to old habits which, says Sue, is a concern.

“People who have gone back to work have resumed a normal lifestyle and may have begun dropping these good behaviours,” she says.

“A lot of people will have learned things that they will continue, but a lot of people will drop things because of time and because they associate it with a time that’s passed.

“Hopefully, people will realise they were saving money and eating better.

“We are urging people to remember what they have learned in recent months.”

Our most popular recipes were 15-minute carbonara, lentil bolognese, fish pie, fish cakes, banana bread – quite homely food