Every year, Danes throw out 700,000 tonnes of food, of which 260,000 tonnes is wasted by households.
And a new survey by Epinion for the organisation Stop Spild Af Mad (Stop Wasting Food) now shows that many Danes postpone throwing out food by storing it in a freezer instead.
READ MORE: Danes wasting container-ship loads of food every year
Postponing food waste
Of the 1,005 respondents interviewed for the survey, 50 percent said they keep food in a freezer for up to a year before they throw it out, while 40 percent throw it out within six months.
Some 81 percent of those who throw the frozen food out admit they forget storing it in the first place.
The most common items Danes freeze are meat, dinner leftovers, vegetables and bread and pastries.
By storing food in a freezer and throwing it out in a few months, Danes are just postponing the food waste.
Freezing food on sale
According to Michael Museth, the founder of Folkets Madhus and an ambassador against food waste, a freezer has become like “a storage centre for all the food on sale”.
“In the old days, we used freezers because shops were not always open, but today the availability is bigger, so in my opinion, there is no reason to buy five bags of beans to freeze them,” Museth told Metroexpress.
“People just go to Bilka and say ‘Oh, I can get five bags of minced meat for no money’, but then they have no idea what to do with the food.”
To avoid food waste, Museth recommends writing down all the items you keep in your freezer and hanging the list on the door.
