Food News

Leisure group Whitbread has vowed to step up expansion of its Premier Inn and Costa chains in a move set to create 12,000 jobs over the next five years.

The latest pledge came as it reported an 11% rise in underlying profits to £356.5 million for the year to February 28.

Having created 3,000 UK jobs over the financial year, it announced new targets which will see it grow Premier Inn by 45% to around 75,000 rooms and double coffee chain Costa's sales to around £2 billion.

The hotel and restaurant group also own Beefeater and Brewers Fayre restaurants.

• Business
• Food
• Business

We asked ITV News viewers on Facebook whether they agreed with environment minister Richard Benyon's comments that the average family is wasting £50 per month by throwing away "perfectly safe" food.

Here is a selection of their answers:

There are people that go through bins in supermarkets and find perfectly safe food. What annoys me too is coffee shops and other food outlets that can only display food for a few hours then the food is binned. Why can't they either sell it cheaper to customers or donate it to soup kitchens or food banks? It's a disgusting waste especially when children in our own country are starving.

It does worry me that the younger generations of my family and quite a few friends will not eat anything that is past its sell by date and it goes in the bin. I feel really bad about the amount I throw away too but I do try not to and I do use things that I judge OK with common sense.

I never go off the dates in the supermarkets, I use my own judgement. I look at the item, smell it and have a tester taste. I don't know how people can waste so much in these tough times.

• UK
• Food
• Richard Benyon

David Cameron admitted that a government minister telling families to waste less food during a time of economic troubles did "not look good."

Environment minister Richard Benyon said during a debate in Westminster that families are throwing away "enormous amounts of food" that is "perfectly safe" to eat, leading to criticism from Labour who called his comments "out-of-touch."

Mr Cameron said the minister's comments, which were reported in the Daily Telegraph, had been misinterpreted.

He told BBC Breakfast: "The real truth here is we need to help families with their household bills.

“That is why we’re freezing the council tax for the third year in a row, that’s why we’ve delivered a tax cut for 24 million working people by lifting the amount you can earn before you start paying tax, that’s why we’ve cancelled fuel duty increase, we’ve cut the duty on beer.

“We’re getting behind working families who work hard and want to do the right thing.”

• UK
• Food
• Richard Benyon

Environment minister Richard Benyon said the cost of wasted food had been estimated at £12 billion per year, “which is about £50 a month for the average family.”

During a debate in Westminster, he reportedly urged people to "pay attention to the storage information on food packaging."

Keeping most fruit in the fridge in its packaging can keep it fresher for a week or more, but around 60 per cent of us take fruit out of the packaging, and more than 70 per cent of us do not store it in the fridge.

Re-closing packs of cheese and sliced meats helps to stop them drying out in the fridge, but 13 per cent of us apparently store such food unwrapped in the fridge.

We can all pay attention to the storage information on food packaging, which will help us to store food at home so that it keeps fresher for longer.

We have been needlessly throwing away enormous amounts of food when it is perfectly safe to eat it.

• Politics
• Richard Benyon
• Food

Families are wasting up to £50 a month by throwing away "enormous amounts of food" that is "perfectly safe" to eat, an environment minister has said.

Richard Benyon claimed people had little idea on how to preserve food and said families should eat their left-overs, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Mr Benyon, who said a different approach to food waste could reduce household expenses, was called "out-of-touch" and "patronising" by Labour's vice-chairman Michael Dugher.

"We all know that we ought to be wasting much less food," Mr Benyon reportedly told MPs at a debate in Westminster.

He added: “Food wasted means fewer pounds in our pocket.

"Household bills are squeezed at the moment and we have the opportunity through a variety of different agencies to inform people better about where their food comes from and how to use it most economically.”

• Politics
• Richard Benyon
• Food

Pamela receives food from The Trussell Trust foodbanks, she says without them she would have to borrow money and it would be "chaos."

• UK
• Food
• Trussell Trust

In a statement Weetabix have confirmed that they have had to halt production of two cereals due to the impact of last year's bad weather on the wheat crops.

We can confirm that unfortunately due to technical issues we have been unable to make Weetabix Minis and Oatibix Bitesize to our exacting standards and have taken the decision to reduce production to resolve the issues.

This has meant a shortage of supplies of these products to the retailers.

This is a temporary reduction in production and we are working hard to fully restore normal capacity so our consumers can once again enjoy the products at their best quality.

The Weetabix Minis and Oatibix Bitesize range are made in a unique factory and no other produce made by The Weetabix Food Company are affected. We apologise for the inconvenience that this may have caused our consumers but assure them of our commitment to make great tasting nutritional breakfast cereals of the highest quality.

The problem is linked to the quality of wheat caused by the extreme wet and cold weather during last year’s growing season. We remain committed to sourcing local wheat, weather permitting.

• UK
• Weetabix
• Wheat

Test results show pork was present in a sample of halal chicken sausages which may have been supplied to 19 schools and nurseries. A further sample of non-halal lean mince beef shows that pork and lamb was present, potentially affecting 17 schools and nurseries

Schools serving halal chicken sausages:

• All Souls
• Beachcroft
• Churchill Gardens
• College Park
• Edward Wilson
• Essendine
• Gateway
• George Eliot
• Hallfield
• Millbank Academy
• Paddington Green
• Queen's Park
• St Augustine's CE
• St Barnbas CE
• St Peters CE
• Wilberforce
• Mary Paterson Nursery
• Portman Childhood Centre

Schools serving halal chicken sausages and non halal lean mince beef:

• St. Mary’s Bryanston Square

Schools serving non halal lean mince beef:

• Barrow Hill
• Burdett Coutts
  
• Hampden Gurney
• Our Lady of Dolours
• QE II
• St Clement Danes
• St Edwards
• St Gabriel’s
• St George’s
• St James & St Michael’s school
• St James & St Michael’s nursery
• St Joseph’s
• St Mary Magdalene
• St Matthews
• St Vincent de Paul
• Westminster Cathedral
• Tachbrook Nursery

• Health
• Food
• Halal

Westminster City Council has named the school, where Halal chicken sausages were found to contain pork DNA, as St Mary's Bryanston Square, a Church of England school in west London.

Nigel J Tottman, the managing director of butchers Nigel Fredericks, said it had sourced the sausages from Brook Farm Sausages. From Nigel Fredericks, the sausages were supplied to catering company Chartwells and then the school.

"We have used Brook Farm Sausages for many years, and can only think that this was an isolated incident involving some element of human error," Mr Tottman said.

"We are currently investigating the cause of this unfortunate and regrettable incident as a matter of utmost priority, together with Compass UK and Brook Farm Sausages.

"We are very sorry that we have had a product come through our supply chain that has failed to meet the high standards we and our customers expect, and extend our apologies to any person who has potentially eaten this product."

• UK
• Food
• Halal