LOCAL zero food waste co-ordinator Amy Alcorn has been busy working with the Peebles Scout and Beaver groups, helping them understand more about food waste, and how to reduce it.

Amy and Kirsty Kondol from Peebles CAN, visited the groups at their scout hut in Peebles last November, where they played games with the Beavers, teaching them the correct places for storing fruit, bread, pasta and other food.

It was a great way of engaging the children in the task that they were about to undertake - the Food Waste Diary challenge.

Each member of the Scouts and Beavers were given a Food Waste Diary, which they were asked to fill in weekly at home.

The diary is full of top tips on storing food and menu planning. In the diary, a note was made of what had been eaten and record was made of the amount of food waste thrown away weekly. Following the tips and using the menu planners, should have decreased food waste substantially by week four.

After four weeks, Amy went back to the Scouts and Beavers to see how they had got on. There were lots of diaries handed back and the Scouts and Beavers who took part were given a Peebles CAN shopping bag and a beautiful olive wooden spoon made with sustainable wood.

The data collected has been used to calculate carbon emissions and to see how results have saved less food waste going to landfill.

The data was also used to see what sort of food families were throwing away. Cooking workshops are planned to demonstrate how to use leftovers such as ends of cucumber, tortilla wraps and natural yoghurt Four vouchers for local high street shops and two Jamie Oliver ‘Save’ cookbooks were given to the families who had taken part.

Once the completed diaries were collected they were put them in a Peebles CAN tote bag, and six diaries were drawn at random. The winning families were invited to the local food market on Saturdays to pick up their prizes.

The winners were - Fergus Weston; Finlay Glasgow; Chris McDonald; Islay McNae; Finlay Semple and Harrison Rice.

The team at Peebles CAN would like to say a big thank you to the Scouts and Beavers, their families and the leaders for taking part in the Peebles CAN Food Diary Challenge.