How to cut food waste with a meal plan and a smart grocery list

Why food gets wasted

It helps to know where waste comes from, because each cause has a different fix.

• Buying for meals you never cook. An over-ambitious plan is the most common culprit.
• Leftover parts of an ingredient. A recipe uses half a cabbage, but the store only sells whole ones.
• Forgetting what you already have, then buying a second jar of the same thing.
• Storing food in the wrong place, so it goes soft or stale sooner than it should.
• Leftovers pushed to the back of the fridge and found a week later.

Most of these are planning problems. A realistic plan and an accurate list deal with the first three before you even reach the store.

Plan meals that share ingredients

The single most useful habit is choosing recipes that use the same fresh ingredients. If Monday's tacos use half a bunch of cilantro, pick a curry or rice bowl for Thursday that uses the other half. The same goes for a bag of spinach, a head of celery, a tub of yogurt or a pack of chicken thighs.

Doing this by hand means reading every recipe's ingredient list and hunting for overlaps. The automatic builder in Suppercharge does it for you. It thinks in whole packages rather than the amount one recipe needs, and every suggested plan comes with a food waste score: the share of fresh ingredients that get fully used across the week. If a plan scores low, ask for another one, or swap the meal that leaves an ingredient stranded.

Shop from one combined list

A combined list stops two kinds of waste: buying too much and buying twice. When three recipes each want some onion, the list tells you the total, so you buy the right number instead of guessing.

• Check the fridge and cupboards before you shop, and mark what you already have.
• Buy loose produce when you only need a little, rather than a large pre-packed bag.
• Stick to the list for fresh food. Extras are fine for things that keep, like pasta or canned tomatoes.
• Choose smaller packs of anything you use slowly, even when the bigger pack is cheaper per gram.

In Suppercharge the list is built from your plan, with amounts already combined and items grouped by aisle. Anything you mark with "I already have this" comes off your shopping, and items you add yourself are sorted into the right section. With Suppercharge Pro, pantry planning goes a step further: record what you already keep at home, and your plans are built around it.

Store food so it lasts the week

Good storage buys you a few extra days, and a few days is often all a plan needs.

• Soft herbs such as parsley and cilantro: trim the stems and stand them in a glass of water in the fridge, loosely covered. Basil prefers the counter.
• Salad leaves and greens: keep them dry, wrapped in a clean towel inside a bag or a lidded box.
• Onions, garlic and potatoes: somewhere cool, dark and dry, with the potatoes kept apart from the onions.
• Bread: freeze whatever you will not eat within two days and toast slices straight from the freezer.
• Opened cans and jars: move what is left into a sealed container and write the date on it.

Cook in the right order

Plan the week so the most perishable meals come first. Fish, fresh herbs, salad leaves and soft fruit belong at the start of the week. Root vegetables, cabbage, squash, canned beans and anything frozen can wait until the end.

Give each meal a night in the week view of your plan. If the week changes and you skip a dinner, move that meal to another day instead of letting its ingredients sit, and freeze anything that will not keep until you get to it.

Use up what is left

Even a careful plan leaves odds and ends. Give them a job before they spoil.

• Stir half a bunch of herbs into a sauce, a dressing, an omelette or a pot of rice.
• Turn tired vegetables into soup, a frittata, fried rice or a tray of roasted vegetables.
• Freeze leftover cooked rice, grains and sauces in single portions for quick lunches.
• Keep a freezer bag for vegetable trimmings and make stock when it is full.
• Plan one flexible night a week for leftovers, so they have a place in the plan.

When you start your next plan, look at what is left first. Search the recipe catalogue for a dish that uses it, add that dish to your plan and let the list fill in the rest.

Notice what you throw away

You do not need a spreadsheet. For two or three weeks, glance at what goes in the bin on collection day. A pattern usually shows up quickly: the same herbs, the same loaf of bread, the same bag of salad. Change one habit at a time, starting with the item you throw away most, and you will see the difference in your shopping bill within a month.