Wasted bread adds up to 60 million kilos a year

SPANISH households waste more than 60 million kilos of bread a year, according to a new report.

An Agriculture, Fishing and Food Ministry study on food waste found 4.3 per cent of the bread bought in Spain last year ended up in the bin, adding up to 62.3 million kilos in all.

The finding prompted the director in Spain of the Too Good To Go app for fighting food waste, Oriol Reull, to point out that while the percentage seems pretty low, “it is not small in volume”, and represents an “import” impact on the environment.

The report also revealed that more than 6.9 million homes in the country, around 48 per cent of the total, chuck out bread; the average per household 8.2 kilos.

Too Good To Go said this means that two kilos of bread per second, 7,200 kilos an hour and 172,800 kilos a day go to waste. Or to put it another way, 249 million sticks of bread in Spain alone.

In terms of financial cost, taking the average price of a kilo of bread in Spain as €2.4, this translates into losses of €149.5 million annually or approximately €19.6 per household.

Too Good to Go recommends using up less than fresh bread by making toast or adding it to cooking.