Stop Food Waste Day 2024

Today is Stop Food Waste Day, a day created to draw attention to food waste problems.

33% of all food produced globally is lost or wasted every year, with 45% of all root crops, fruit, and vegetables grown destined for the bin.

While Stop Food Waste Day is designed to highlight the environmental impact of throwing away food, there’s also an economic impact, with millions of households struggling to afford to feed their families.

25% of the food wasted globally could feed all 795 million undernourished people in the world. It could also go a long way to helping the 3% of UK households that had to rely on foodbanks last year to put food on the table.

To celebrate Stop Food Waste Day and to highlight where you can turn to for more affordable food if you’re struggling, we’ve pulled together a list of all the amazing organisations and apps that redistribute food for less.

Too Good To Go

Too Good To Go is an app that lets you rescue unsold food. Use the app to explore shops and restaurants in your local area and pick up surprise bags of food at greatly reduced prices.

Oilio

Oilio is a food-sharing app for local communities. The idea is that you advertise food that you don’t need or will use and people who live near to you can pick it up for free to stop it going to waste.

Earth and Wheat

Earth and Wheat offers grocery boxes that reduce food waste while giving back to communities. It rescues high-quality bakery, fruit and veg that isn’t perfect or fails quality control and sells it on for less. For every box that’s ordered, Earth and Wheat donate a meal to those in need via FareShare.

NoWaste

The NoWaste app enables you to organise the food you have by expiration dates. It also lets you synchronise your list with friends and family so you can share any items you don’t need that are close to expiratory, helping to save on waste and money.

UK Harvest

UK Harvest is on a mission to prevent food waste and food insecurity by enriching and educating communities. It has rescued 2,850 tonnes of food and served 6.7 million meals to the community. It helps people through community food hubs, providing affordable food, and also offers cookery skills classes through an online hub.

Karma

Karma works much like Too Good To Go by connecting surplus food from restaurants, cafes and grocery stores with consumers for a lower price.

Food Cycle

Food Cycle offers community dining across the country, providing delicious meals using food that would otherwise go to waste. It has saved more than 239 tonnes of food from going to waste creating meals for those in need. Visit their website to find your local scheme.