Kitche and Buckinghamshire Council – working together to reduce food waste

It will be promoting and encouraging the use of a free home food waste app - Kitche - to its residents to help cut down on their home food waste and save money.

With a cost of living crisis upon us the campaign is very timely. Research has shown that Buckinghamshire residents are throwing away up to 32% of their food every year. Across the UK it's a very serious issue with UK households throwing away 6.6 million tons of food waste a year, almost three quarters of that being food we could have eaten. It is also estimated that the average family can save up to £720 a year by cutting down on food waste.

Kitche is one of the ways that can help families cut down on food waste and save money. It's a free and easy to use app that works to reduce waste from inside people's kitchens and makes it easier than ever to manage food at home. People import food from their shopping receipts on to the app which then reminds them to use the food they have, and suggests recipes to help them do so. The app and the Kitche platform are also packed full of useful food information, tips and hacks to help busy families make the most of their food shopping. It can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play.

The campaign will run for 9 months. Its aims are to help increase awareness of food waste across the county, to provide practical ways to reduce it in the home and so save residents money. Buckinghamshire Council will also promote Kitche’s fantastic recipes and food waste hacks across the full range of its communications channels and there will be other activities to support it, like online cookery classes.

Peter Strachan, Buckinghamshire Council’s Cabinet Member for Climate Change and Environment said: “We spend hundreds of thousands of pounds disposing of food waste each year in Buckinghamshire. Most of it could have been eaten, so I am really excited about working with Kitche on this innovative project. I want to help residents reduce food waste, benefiting their pockets and the Council’s budget. I think our work with Kitche can do it. The Council is focused on reducing our impact on the climate too and our work with Kitche can reduce the huge impact food waste has on the environment.”

Kitche co- founder and CEO Lynsey Scott said: "With food prices going up it's more critical than ever to find ways in which we can help people manage their food consumption habits. I co-founded Kitche when conversations with friends left us all horrified at how much usable food we were all throwing away and became determined to do something about it. Whether you want to help save the planet, live a more sustainable life, or just plain and simply cut down on your food bills we believe our easy-to-use tech can help you do so. We are looking forward to our partnership with Buckinghamshire Council who share our aims."

The nine-month partnership allows Kitche and Buckinghamshire Council to try lots of new ways to engage with householders and get more people reducing food waste. At the end of the partnership it’s hoped to show a real reduction in food waste locally and share the success with other local authorities.