12 Mar 2015

Kiwis' food waste revealed

8:48 am on 12 March 2015

Research shows $900 million worth of food is wasted annually by New Zealand households.

The figures published as part of the 'Love Food, Hate Waste' campaign which starts today, estimate each household dumps about $560 of food every year.

Chief executive of waste and recycling industry body WasteMINZ, Paul Evans, said that means households send about 80 kilos of edible food to the tip annually.

He said householders collectively throw away about 120,000 tonnes of food annually which is enough to feed about 260,000 people.

He said wasting food also wastes the fuel used to transport it and avoiding that food wastage would take the equivalent of 118,000 cars off the road for a year.