“The majority of people need one or two peppers, but they go into the supermarket, they go into the corner shop and they pick up a bag where there are seven, eight peppers. They use three and then they throw away six.
Photo: Big Zuu
“I’m thinking: do you really know what you’re doing here? Do you know how much money you’re wasting?”
D’Acampo, 47, isn’t one to hide his feelings, and his outrage about food waste is clear – which is why he’s teamed up with Love Food Hate Waste for this year’s Food Waste Action Week, encouraging people to buy loose fruit and veg. According to Love Food Hate Waste, 60% of food waste comes from UK homes, which results in 18 million tonnes of CO2. It suggests that the average household of four is wasting the equivalent of £1,000 per year on food that ends up in the bin. “And yet, we have people in the world who are dying of starvation… How wrong are we? Sometimes you just need someone like me to slap you in the face and go: wakey, wakey! Don’t you see what you’re doing?” D’Acampo says.
“It’s insane to throw all this food away – I think it’s a crime to humans, to humanity, to do what we do.”
And according to D’Acampo, the problem is getting “100% worse”.
“In the shops, every single thing that you buy is wrapped in plastic,” he says. “Where is the excitement, the spirit of smelling an apple or an orange?” For D’Acampo, the issue isn’t just food waste – but home cooks could benefit from paying a bit more attention to the fruit and veg they buy. “That’s another thing people don’t understand – I always tell them 50% of the job when you cook is about buying, it’s not about cooking. If you buy the right ingredients, you’re 50% there, and the food is going to taste much, much better.” D’Acampo’s strong opinions around food waste stem from his upbringing. “I didn’t have a family with money, I was brought up on a farm,” he says. “For me, it’s normal… In my house growing up, there was no throwing stuff in the bin. There was no buying things unless you really needed them. So in my mind, it’s always like: OK, what do I need to do to make sure this doesn’t happen? I want my family, my children, everybody to understand the amount of food the we are wasting.” So what can you do to minimise waste in the kitchen? Buying loose fruit and veg is a start, so you only have what you need.
Gino D’Acampo: Food waste is a ‘crime to humans’ By Prudence Wade, PA
After over 30 years in the UK, there’s something Gino D’Acampo can’t get used to: the food waste.
“We are used to going to the supermarket and going to places to buy our food – to touch it, to smell it,” the TV chef says of his hometown in Naples, Italy. “In the last 30 years that I’ve been here, I’ve always been thinking: why do these people buy everything in a plastic bag? Why do they buy so much stuff they don’t need?” For D’Acampo – who is a regular face on This Morning and fronts Gordon, Gino And Fred: Road Trip alongside Gordon Ramsay and Fred Sirieix – it’s “crazy” to buy your fruit and vegetables wrapped up in plastic. “It’s crazy to think that anyone would go and buy a bag of peppers, without touching them, without smelling them – and without even thinking what they’re going to do with these backup peppers.
68 | mccarthyholden.co.uk
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