Tesco figures suggest UK's food wastage decreasing

The figures from Tesco on food wastage would have made Mrs Beeton blush.

The Victorian doyenne of good housekeeping would have been appalled that two-thirds of bagged salad is thrown in the bin.

On to top of this, nearly half of all bakery items sold by Tesco are wasted, while 40 per cent of apples go un-chomped, according to a report by the supermarket.

But beyond these figures lurks a different story: food waste in the UK is actually going down as consumers cut back and shop smarter - so much so that it is changing the face of grocery shopping in the UK.

The amount of food wasted in households from 2006 to 2007 was 8.3m tonnes, according to Wrap, the recycling group. This had fallen to 7.2m tonnes by 2011, the latest year it has figures available.

The main reason for this is simple: people are buying less when they go shopping. Despite having one of the fastest growing populations in western Europe, many of Britain's grocers have seen falling volumes since the downturn began in 2007.

"People have been managing their budgets by cutting back on units," says Clive Black, a retail analyst at Shore Capital. "Waste management has been a big factor on how households have cut back, particularly on fresh food."

Changing shopping habits have contributed too. The days of an enormous weekly shop are coming to an end - as the travails of Tesco's cavernous "Extra" stores illustrate. Instead consumers have opted for top-up shops, using convenience stores to top up on perishable produce.

This has turned convenience stores into the latest front in the rivalry between the major grocers. Before, J Sainsbury, Wm Morrison, Asda and Tesco fought to build enormous out of town supermarkets. Now, the battleground is in city centres as the big four attempt to open smaller stores, closer to people's homes and workplaces.

This is a global trend. Even Walmart is looking at smaller stores. The world's biggest retailer by sales will build more small shops than its trademark "big box" stores next year for the first time.

As a result, the convenience sector has had to improve over the past decade, says Jonathan Pritchard, an analyst at Oriel. "Ten years ago, they weren't very convenient and they didn't have much on the shelves. Now they're 7-to-11 and almost same price as a superstore."

Tesco itself is taking a number of steps in store to reduce waste. The grocer is removing "display until" tags from its fresh fruit and vegetables, and will rejig 600 in-store bakeries to reduce amount of bread on sale.

The supermarket is also ending multi-buy promotions on its large salad bags, according to Matt Simister, commercial director at Tesco. Mr Simister said that these steps were "just the start and we'll be reviewing what else we can do."

While this does not herald the end of buy-one-get-one-free, retailers may cut back on using promotions as a crutch. "Promotions became a drug - everyone latched on to them," says Mr Black.

As the economy improves, sales volumes should also rise, leaving supermarkets less reliant on offers. Consumers are slowly becoming savvier about offers, too.

"Promotions in general are being tightened," says Mr Pritchard. "Everybody is saying that this what they want: they don't want buy-one-get-one-free, they want lower prices." At least one part of Mrs Beeton lives on.

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