FOOD WASTE FOOD IN THE UK

British people throw away about 4.5 million tons* of food every year. That is
enough to fill 3, 600 Olympic swimming pools!
 70% of food waste comes from homes not from shops or restaurants.
 An average British family of four throws away about £70 of food a
month – that is about £800 a year!
 Each British home throws away 170 potatoes a year – that is 4.4 million
potatoes every day!
 We throw away 335.8 million bananas and 292 million apples a year!
 We throw away about 20 million pieces of bread every day – 7.3 billion a year! Put end to end, the pieces of bread
in a year con go around the Earth 28 times.
*1 ton=1,000 kilograms

Read the infographic again. Match the numbers with information a–f.
28 3,600 70
a the percentage of food waste that comes from British homes  ___________
b the number of times wasted slices of bread can go around the Earth  ___________
c    the number of Olympic-size swimming pools that food waste in the             ___________
UK can fill     

Watch the video again. Choose the correct alternatives.

1. Esme, the reporter, is in a supermarket / food market.
2. Davina works for a food charity / business called Be Enriched.
3. Be Enriched collects food from the market and makes meals for local schools / the local community.
4. The food Be Enriched collects is the same / different every week.
5. Be Enriches pays / doesn’t pay for the fruit and vegetables from the market.
6. Davina says they can boil or roast the broccoli / carrots.
7. They take a few / lots of tomatoes from the market.
8. All / Not all of the food Be Enriched uses comes from Borough Market.
9. Be Enriched also teaches people how to cook with vegetables / grow vegetables.
10. The people who cook the food are paid to work / volunteers

 WHILE YOU WATCH 

What food does Davina suggest they make? Match 1–5 with the phrases below to make drinks and dishes.

1 rocket   _________ a. and broccoli soup

2 pumpkin             _________ b. and passion fruit smoothie

3 spinach   _________ c. and red lentil stew

4 mango   _________ d. and tomato salad

5    banana   _________ e. bread

 WHILE YOU WATCH 

What do people like about the community kitchen? Complete the summary with the words below.

atmosphere fresh nice nutritious socializing volunteers

Speaker 1 says that she likes the lovely 1______________________, the 2__________________  food and the 3

_____________________  people that go to the community kitchen.

Speaker 2 says that he likes the friendly 4 _____________________ and the 5 ___________________ 

food. He also likes 6 __________________ and meeting other people.

Work in pairs. Discuss the questions and write your opinions.

1. Do you think the food Esme and Davina made in the video looked good?

2. Be Enriched teaches people to make meals using all parts of vegetables so that they waste less food. What other ways

can you think of to reduce food waste?

3. Do you know of any organizations or websites that help people reduce food waste?

 AFTER YOU WATCH 

Work in pairs. Compare your ideas. Choose a menu and present your ideas to the rest of the class. Give at least 5
ideas each.

some bananas some carrots lots of tomatoes a mango

a few apples some broccoli a packet of spinach a pumpkin

some peppers a lot of potatoes

EXAMPLE
A:    I think we can use the potatoes and spinach to make some soup.
B: Hmm, I thought we could use the spinach in a salad with some tomatoes and peppers.
 
1. ___________________________________________________________________________________
 2. ___________________________________________________________________________________

3. ___________________________________________________________________________________

4. ___________________________________________________________________________________

5. ___________________________________________________________________________________

MEXICO’S FOOD WASTE

Every year in Mexico, we toss away over 20 million tons of food throughout the entire supply chain. This is
food that is still in ideal conditions for human consumption.

It is estimated that 72% of food waste is generated in the first links of the production chain, from pre-harvest to
distribution while the remaining 28% is generated when the food reaches both retailers and consumers.

Moreover, water used in food production resulting in food waste reaches more than 40 billion liters a figure
equivalent to the water used by the country in 2.4 years. Thus, the total cost of water loss by food waste in
Mexico is USD$ 7,972,007,957 per year.