Environment

Food police in the UK warn you not to throw leftovers away

by Amy Judd | January 10, 2009 at 03:18 pm

95 views | 4 Recommendations | 2 comments

Just as websites like coupon.com and coupon mom, help you plan your weekly shopping trip and get the most food for your budget in this time of economic recession, in the United Kingdom 'food police' will be visiting homes to give advice on how to cook with leftovers, to reduce the amount of food that is thrown away.

It is a door to door campaign starting tomorrow and is funded by the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) and these people will be charged with educating the country, however, some refer to it as 'excessive government nannying'.

The first trial will last for seven weeks and eight 'police' will call at 24,500 homes and will be giving out advice and recipes.

The pilot scheme, which will cost £30,000, could be extended nationwide if it is seen as a success. If all 25 million households in the UK were visited in the same way, 8,000 officials would be required at a cost of tens of millions of pounds.

Peter Ainsworth, the shadow environment secretary, said: "You might have thought, at a time of economic hardship, that spending public money on stating the obvious is hardly a priority. With household budgets under pressure, most people are looking to spend wisely and waste less anyway."

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at 15:38 on January 10th, 2009

Strange. An example of the government going too far.

gerrypopplestone

at 20:10 on January 10th, 2009

Wastage of food is enormous in the UK but its mainly because of the 'junk food virus' that so few people now bother much with cooking themselves! I rarely waste food: HONEST!