Useful tips on reducing the amount of Christmas food waste

Last Christmas, Sainsbury’s published the results of research showing that more food is thrown away at Christmas than at any other time of year. The reason being that people no longer know how to prepare and cook food. One in ten of the people surveyed had thrown away a whole turkey because of a cooking mishap and this easily adds to the growing concern of Christmas waste.

Given the cost of buying a large turkey, not to mention the anticipation of your family and guests about eating it, not bothering to find out how to cook it is, frankly, shocking, especially given how easy it is to go online and find out.

How to cook your Christmas turkey

A brief visit to the BBC Good Food website could save your Christmas – or even your Sunday roast – as it has a ‘Roast Timer’, letting you enter the type of meat you want to cook and how heavy its weight. At the click of the ‘Calculate’ button, it’ll tell you what temperature to set the oven at and how long your meat will take to cook. It really isn’t rocket science.

Finding out how to cook the perfect roast potato is less easy because everyone has a different idea of what perfection should be! But there again, the internet is the place to turn to for cooking advice, not only about turkey and potatoes but also Brussel sprouts, Yorkshire puddings and anything else you fancy indulging in! Then all it takes is a bit of planning on Christmas Day in order to get it right and with any luck – and more internet searches for recipes involving leftovers – there’ll be no waste at all.

Christmas waste generated from catering

The Institute of Hospitality actively supports managers in the hospitality industry with resources and guidance about all aspects of their work. Catering waste is a huge problem and the Institute has published a number of measures that restaurateurs can adopt in order to help prevent food waste.

But however careful you are as a caterer, there will always be waste associated with food, food processing, and packaging, especially at Christmas.