LONDON MAYOR Boris Johnson is urging London’s hospitality industry to sign up to the FoodSave scheme which could significantly reduce the amount of food wastage across the Capital and save businesses thousands of pounds.
The food waste prevention scheme has already saved 15 small businesses more than £100,000 since its pilot last November. The Mayor’s office is now inviting an additional 200 new entrants, including pubs, restaurant and hotels to apply for the scheme for free.
According to government waste advisory body, the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP), each year the UK’s hospitality and food service sector wastes the equivalent of 1.3 billion meals, costing companies an average of £10,000 a year . It also calculates that nearly three quarters of wasted food from the sector was perfectly edible.
“With FoodSave, cafes, pubs and restaurants are learning simple ways to reduce the amount of food they throw away and saving thousands of pounds in the process,” said Matthew Pencharz, the mayor’s environment adviser. “The mayor now wants hundreds more businesses to get on board this great free scheme and help us dramatically reduce food waste across the city.”
The Mayor’s office hopes the FoodSave initiative will ultimately divert more than 1,000 tonnes of food waste from landfill, reduce total food waste by over 150 tonnes, and save businesses more than £350,000 each year.
So far the FoodSave scheme has prevented an average of 1.6 tonnes of food waste for each business every year, and saved them an average of £6,000 annually.
FoodSave is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), the London Waste and Recycling Board (LWARB) and the Mayor of London, and is managed by the Greater London Authority (GLA).
