Waste Aware Scotland has revamped the digital presence of its Love Food Hate Waste campaign with the launch of an iPhone app designed to minimise domestic food waste.

The app provides consumers with interactive tools such as a portion size planner, recipe finder for leftover ingredients, weekly meal planner, and various hints and tips on how to reduce food waste.

The app, which asks users to put their ingredients into an on-screen blender then shake it to create an easy, healthy recipe, was built in collaboration with Dundee-based applications developers Waracle, and is available to download from the iTunes store.

A Facebook page and Twitter account, as well as a Love Food Hate Waste blog, have also been developed, and the campaign’s website has undergone a revamp to now includes video content, interactive features, and – like the app – a portion planning tool and recipe finder.

Dr Nicki Souter, campaigns manager for Waste Aware Scotland, commented on the digital drive: “We’re very proud to be launching Love Food Hate Waste’s new digital campaign and view it as a great way of getting even more people involved and engaged with the ongoing push to reduce food waste. Research time and time again shows that more people are going online for information, so we’re moving with the times to get our message out there.’’

Scottish food waste statistics highlighted by the campaign include:

In excess of £1 billion of food is wasted by consumers in Scotland every year: an average of £430 per household. Scottish households throw out 566,000 tonnes of food each year. Two thirds of all food waste could have been consumed. Half of the good food thrown out is completely untouched, with one in seven items still in their packets. At least £18 million worth of food thrown away is still in date. If we stopped wasting all this food, we could effectively prevent the equivalent of 1.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year in Scotland. This is the same as taking 1 in 4 cars off the road.