Food waste costs an average family £680 per year

Produce grown in the UK that does not meet retailer standards on size or shape or is blemished is often used for animal feed or simply ploughed back into the ground even though it is edible, with as much as 40 per cent of a crop rejected.

The report, commissioned by the UK's global food security programme, also showed that the average household throws away more than 5kg (11lb) of food per week, and nearly two-thirds of that is avoidable.

The waste costs £480 a year per household on average, and £680 per family. Households throw away a fifth of the food they buy, wasting it for reasons ranging from cooking and preparing too much to not using it before it goes off, the study showed.

Read: Red Cross UK food aid