Last year the council’s waste services secured funding from Sainsbury’s Supermarkets Ltd to deliver the household food waste reduction campaign, Waste Less, Save More.

With this funding, the team has been working closely with the NHS, housing & community safety colleagues and housing associations to provide up to 250 new council tenants with a welcome pack of kitchen essentials to help households with food budgeting, eating healthily and reducing avoidable food waste.

Councillor Angus Forbes, convener of the environment and infrastructure committee, said: “Using the funding from Sainsbury’s, our waste services team were able to work with colleagues in housing and the NHS, to put together useful starter packs for our new tenants. The packs contain the NHS’s Healthy Eating leaflet, easy recipes and some basic but essential kitchen equipment so that tenants can eat healthily, save money, keep to a budget and make the most of their food resulting in less food waste being sent to landfill.”

One third of the average household general waste bin in Perth and Kinross contains food waste, two thirds of which is avoidable – the food is still edible, it is within the use-by date and could have been made into a new meal. The Sainsbury’s funding is helping to raise awareness of how to plan a food shop, how to store food so that it lasts longer, how to portion size and how to make the most of spare ingredients and leftovers.

To find out more about the Sainsbury’s Waste Less, Save More campaign in Perth and Kinross, please visit www.pkc.gov.uk/wastelesssavemore.