Food waste: buy, store and use it well

Food waste wastes the water, energy and money that went into growing, shipping and buying it. Most of it happens at home, which means you can do something about it.

The scale of the problem

• UNEP's Food Waste Index Report 2024 found that 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022: about one fifth of food available to consumers.
• Households were responsible for 631 million tonnes, about 60 per cent; food services for 28 per cent and retail for 12 per cent.
• In households, each person wastes about 79 kg of food per year on average.
• That is roughly the equivalent of one billion meals wasted every day, while 783 million people go hungry (UN News).
• Food loss and waste generate up to 10 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, and UNEP found hotter countries tend to have more household food waste per person.

What the UAE is doing

• The UN's Sustainable Development Goal 12.3 aims to halve food waste by 2030.
• The UAE has a national food loss and waste initiative called Ne'ma. With the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment, it set out a roadmap in 2023 to cut food loss and waste by 50 per cent by 2030.
• In the Gulf, large family meals, buffets and hospitality traditions are part of the culture. Generosity and avoiding waste can go together: cook to plan and share leftovers.

Plan and shop smart

• Check your fridge and cupboards before shopping and write a list.
• Plan meals for the week, including one 'use it up' meal.
• Buy loose fruit and vegetables in the amounts you need rather than big bags that will spoil.
• Be careful with multi-buy offers: they are only a saving if you will eat it all.

Understand the dates

• Use-by dates are about safety. Do not eat food after its use-by date, even if it looks and smells fine (GOV.UK).
• Best before dates are about quality. Food is usually still safe afterwards; check it with your senses, for example mould on bread or a sour smell from dairy.
• You can freeze food before its use-by date. Bacteria cannot grow in frozen food. Keep your freezer at minus 18C, label it with the date, and use it within 24 hours of defrosting.
• If you cook food before its use-by date, cool it, refrigerate it and eat it within 48 hours, or freeze it (GOV.UK).

Use it up

• Store food properly: see the Kitchen Skills module for fridge temperatures and storage.
• Turn leftovers into new meals: rice into fried rice, roast chicken into wraps, soft vegetables into soup or a sauce.
• Share extra food with neighbours, friends or family, and serve smaller portions with seconds available.
• Compost inedible scraps such as peels if your home or community has a compost scheme (UNEP).