The Norfolk Waste Partnership is leading a campaign to reduce food waste in Norfolk after being chosen to run seven Sainsbury’s “Discovery Communities” as part of the supermarket’s “Waste Less, Save More” campaign.
The Partnership has received a grant of £49,750 to carry out a variety of activities in seven areas of Norfolk; one in each council area to highlight the issue of food waste.
Working with Sainsbury’s, the already successful Norfolk Plan Eat Save campaign is being rolled out to each of the seven local Discovery Communities.
“Waste Less, Save More” was launched by Sainsbury’s in 2015 to help combat the growing issue of food waste. Following a 12-month trial in Derbyshire, the retailer has unveiled a further £1m investment to support 147 UK-wide projects – which includes Norfolk’s seven Discovery Communities.
Norfolk’s grant from Sainsbury is part of a £1m worth of funding to support 147 UK-wide Discovery Communities as part of Sainsbury’s next phase of its food waste campaign.
Paul Crewe, Project Lead for Waste less, Save more, at Sainsbury’s – “We’ve learnt a lot over the last 12 months about how we can help households waste less food and save money, but we’re now casting our net wider to see the innovative ways communities up and down the country tackle food waste.”
The seven areas chosen to be Sainsbury’s “Discovery Communities” as part of the supermarket’s Waste less, Save more campaign are: Watton & Carbrooke in Breckland, Thorpe St. Andrew in Broadland, Shrublands in Great Yarmouth, Downham Market in King’s Lynn & West Norfolk, Fakenham in North Norfolk, Heartsease & Tuckswood in Norwich, and Costessey in South Norfolk.
The Chairman of the Norfolk Waste Partnership, Cllr John Fisher said: “The average family throws away £700 worth of food a year. By receiving this grant funding from Sainsbury’s we can offer advice to inspire householders to cut down on their waste and save on their food bills.
We are delivering a combination of awareness raising events as well as practical cookery skills sessions, to inspire hope people to reduce their food waste and potentially save money on food shopping at the same time.”
Norfolk’s food waste Discovery Communities kicked-off this week with the launch of a network of seven Community Fridges. The first Community Fridge was unveiled in Watton on November 1 hosted by the Wayland Partnership.
Other Community Fridges are being unveiled in Great Yarmouth (November 8), Fakenham (November 9) and Costessey (November 14) with a further three fridges to follow in Norwich, Downham Market and Thorpe St. Andrew.
Pop-up “Food Saver” community events are taking place within each of the seven Norfolk Discovery Community areas together with work in primary schools. Householders are being encouraged to think about the food they buy, to plan meals and consider carefully how to store food to make it last longer at home.
Creating meals from leftovers so as to prevent food going to waste will also form part of free cookery workshops being run locally by Norfolk Public Heath’s Joy of Food team.
Households in the seven Discovery Community areas will receive an 8-page newsletter which explains what’s happening in their local area and where to go for information about reducing or avoiding food waste.
Paul Crewe, Project Lead for Waste less, Save more, at Sainsbury’s, said: “We’ve learnt a huge amount as a result of our 12-month pilot and we are really excited to be rolling out the next phase of Waste less, Save more across our 147 Discovery Communities.
“We’ve learnt a lot over the last 12 months about how we can help households waste less food and save money, but we’re now casting our net wider to see the innovative ways communities up and down the country tackle food waste.”
Food waste is a big issue in the UK. The average family throws away £700 worth of food every year and at the same time 4m people in the UK are living in food poverty. Most food waste in the UK (4.1m tonnes or 61%) is avoidable and could have been eaten had it been better managed.
