Cost of living: How to save £720 a year on food shopping

Recent data shows 75 per cent of us have admitted the cost of food is a major concern, as inflation on groceries reached 18.4 per cent recently.

With that in mind, Richard Price, owner of online supermarket Britsuperstore, has shared his advice for making savings on your weekly shop.

He said: “While you might think food waste doesn’t affect you, tossing edible food doesn’t just waste money, it's sent to landfills and therefore is also bad for the environment -The UK throws away around 9.5 million tonnes of food waste in a single year.

This is how you can save up to £720 a year on your weekly shop (Image: Getty/Image Source)

“There are a few ways to cut down on food waste which will save you money on your food shop in the long run.”

These are his top tips:

Check On Your Storage

Separating foods that produce more ethylene gas from those that don’t is a great way to reduce food spoilage. Ethylene promotes ripening in foods and could lead to rotten food.

Make a shopping list

Make a shopping list for every food shop!  Add items on to this throughout the week and stick to it when you go shopping. Always aim to plan ahead and shop with specific meals in mind this discourages buying items you don’t need, by doing this you can save over £10 a week on your foodshop.

Water your vegetables

Keep the stems of vegetables such as broccoli, celery and asparagus in water to help them stay fresh and crisp for as long as possible by doing this and keeping the water fresh your veg could last upto 5 days!

Don't be afraid to freeze food

Some fruit and vegetables will lose their texture when frozen – you can deal with this by freezing them pureed or stewed. Or freezing bread can last anywhere up to 6 months!

Measure your meal portions

You can reduce your waste by cooking only the amount you need for your individual circumstances. Measuring takes away the guesswork and makes it more likely you’ll get the right amount.

Understand food labelling

There’s a big difference between “best before” and “use-by” dates. Sometimes food is still safe to eat after the “best before” date, whereas it’s the “use-by” date tells you when it is no longer safe to eat. Food that has passed its best before can still be safe to consume, but the flavour and texture may change over time.

Keep a log of spoiled foods

Writing down the types of foods that go bad can help a person identify the foods that they can cut back on. If you know week after week the same foods are being thrown away you know to cutback and money can be spent elsewhere”