The UK Goes Lean on Food

A couple months ago we compared Costco to the "lean" corner store, deriding the big box mentality of purchasing in bulk to supposedly save money.  Perhaps a few bucks are saved initially, but what is eventually lost in terms of storage space, spoilage, change of preferences, and the like?  Perhaps the UK government took note of our post as they have declared war on food waste.  Ok, I probably shouldn’t go that far, but still…

Supermarkets will be urged to drop "three for two" deals on food
  that encourage shoppers into bulk-buying more than they need, often leading
  to the surpluses being thrown away. The scandal of the vast mountains of
  food that are thrown away in Britain while other parts of the world starve
  is revealed in a Cabinet Office report today. It calls for a reduction in
  food waste: up to 40 per cent of groceries can be lost before they are
  consumed due to poor processing, storage and transport.

40 per cent.  Initially it surprised me, but after further thought it really seems reasonable.  And as we predicted that households could save some real money by not buying in bulk, the UK government did some analysis to put a tangible value on the savings.

The report says UK households could save an average of £420 per year by not
  throwing away 4.1 million tonnes of food that could have been eaten.  "If we are to get
  food prices down, we must do more to deal with unnecessary demand, such as
  by all of us doing more to cut our food waste which is costing the average
  household in Britain around £8 per week," he [Gordon Brown] told journalists on
  board the plane to the [G8] summit.

Buying in bulk really is penny wise and pound foolish.  Real British pounds in this case.