Pumpkins are Halloween’s hidden food waste nightmare

With very few pumpkins being eaten, up to 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin could be thrown into Britain’s bins by the end of the day, says waste management company BusinessWaste.co.uk.

According to the company’s director Mark Hall, the festival is a contradiction to the recent supermarket food waste debates that have been raging recently.

“The worst thing is that just a week after the controversy of supermarket food waste comes a festival that openly wastes food,” says Hall.

“Unfortunately, most people don’t have a clue what to do with the pumpkin flesh. Bins up and down the country are bursting with the stuff because many people still don’t compost. It’s food waste on a grand scale,” he adds.

Last year, Tesco said they sold two-million pumpkins by the end of October, a third of the UK market, with the majority of these being sold in the week before Halloween.

“Every year, people are being told to try out pumpkin recipes but the bottom line is that people are either too lazy, or just don’t like the idea,” says Hall.

“Pumpkins are a culinary unknown to most people, and the bin is by far the easiest option. It’s a shame because farmers are growing whole fields of these things just to be wasted,” he added.

Leigh Stringer