Leicestershire Waste Partnership has launched a Love Food Hate Waste initiative in support of a National campaign, in a bid to reduce food waste which usually ends up in landfill.

On average, UK households waste 6.7 million tonnes of food every year, around one third of all food purchased. That’s like buying three bags of shopping and throwing one bag away as soon as you get home. Around 60% of the food thrown away is actually avoidable and could have been eaten if managed better.

As part of this campaign during September and October, the waste team will be holding roadshows at various locations across the County, see below for details.

For more tips on how to reduce your food waste and recipe ideas visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

As part of our Love Food Hate Waste Campaign we ran a recipe competition to rescue leftovers.

We received 104 recipes. These were shortlisted to 15 finalists, three entries from each category. The 15 finalists were invited to a presentation evening held on 13^th March 09 at the Taste restaurant at Leicester College.

At the presentation evening the 15 dishes were cooked by the catering students and judged to give a final top 3. The judging was based on taste, texture and innovative use of leftovers.

The winning recipe was a Lemon and Almond tart, which used leftover marzipan, stale breadcrumbs and leftover lemons. Scrumptious Tomato soup won second prize and Celeriac and Bacon pasta came third. The 15 finalists plus 35 other selected entries will feature in a leftover recipe cookbook.

To find out more about the national campaign for Love Food Hate Waste, please see our Frequently Asked Questions page.