Collectively, UK families waste seven million tonnes of food every year, that’s about £200 per person. The food we throw out costs money, cutting the waste makes sense to both our bank balance and the environment.

Where to start this Christmas?

Plan ahead

Work out how many people you will be catering for at each meal and calculate what you need. Use unexpected left-overs in soups or ‘freeze it for later.

Write a shopping list

Sticking to it is the hardest part. Supermarkets aren’t stupid, they know how to trigger your ‘impulse buy gene’.

Where to shop?

Use the supermarket comparison site mysupermarket.co.uk to check out the best prices, especially on large items such as alcohol, meat and fish.

Allow enough time to visit several stores to make the best savings. Don’t forget, that your local butchers, bakers, greengrocers, farm shops and markets are brilliant for locally sourced food, which is often much cheaper and can have fewer food miles than supermarket lines.

What to buy?

This is where forward planning pays off. It’s easier to resist impulse buying or over-buying if you know what you actually need. Buy fresh produce: bakery, dairy, fish and meat with the longest best before and use by dates.

Remember that ‘best before’ and ‘use by’ dates are different. Best before is a guideline, but the use by date appears on foods that can make you ill if eaten after their expiry date. Your nose is the best detective – if something smells odd, then it probably is!

And the leftovers?

Bubble and squeak, soups, stews, curries, omelettes, pie fillings, the list goes on and there is always the freezer providing meat was cooked from fresh.

More information available at lovefoodhatewaste.com