Less waste

How to stop wasting food at home

9 June 2026 · 5 min read

UK households throw away millions of tonnes of perfectly good food a year — for a typical family that's hundreds of pounds straight in the bin. The fixes are small and genuinely easy.

1. Shop your fridge first

Before you write a shopping list or open a delivery app, look at what you already have and plan a couple of meals around it. Most waste starts with buying things you didn't need on top of things you forgot you had.

2. Store food properly

The right spot makes food last noticeably longer — herbs in a glass of water, leafy veg in the drawer, raw meat on the bottom shelf. See our fridge storage guide.

3. Use a "eat me first" zone

Keep a spot at the front of the fridge for things near the end of their life. If it's in your eyeline, it gets eaten.

4. Understand date labels

"Best before" is about quality, not safety — loads of food gets binned the day it's reached a date it was actually fine past. Trust your eyes and nose for best-before items; only treat "use by" as a hard stop.

5. Love your leftovers

Box up extras in clear containers, label them, and treat them as tomorrow's lunch. Cooked-too-much is free food if you keep it visible.

6. Let the tech remember for you

You can't use up what you've forgotten about. What's in my Fridge keeps a running list of what you have, flags what's going off soon, and turns it into dinner ideas — so good food gets eaten, not binned.