60% of us bin food unnecessarily before going on holiday this summer

You’re three days out from the holiday. The suitcases are half-packed, the kids are feral with excitement and you’ve just opened the fridge to discover a block of cheese, six yoghurts, two slightly sad courgettes and a bag of salad leaves that definitely won’t survive another 48 hours. Sound familiar?

Research from Too Good To Go has put numbers on something many of us already know in our hearts: we throw away a startling amount of food before going on holiday. Six in ten Irish households (60%) admit they’ve binned food unnecessarily before heading off, and more than half of people (52%) say they waste more food during the summer than at any other time of year. Of those, 42% point to being away as the biggest reason for the spike.

Fresh fruit and veg, dairy, bread and leftovers are the usual casualties. And while there’s something almost inevitable about a holiday clear-out, a lot of what ends up in the bin didn’t actually need to go there.

The pre-holiday panic-shop makes it worse

Here’s the thing: many of us nip to the supermarket in the days before we travel, out of habit or mild anxiety, and come home with more fresh food than we can possibly eat before departure. Add that to whatever was already lurking at the back of the fridge and you’ve got a waste problem before you’ve even booked the airport taxi.

Machaela O’Leary, Key Accounts Lead at Too Good To Go, puts it plainly: “Summer should be a time for making memories, not wasting food. Whether it’s using up ingredients in the days leading up to your trip, freezing food that won’t be eaten in time, or sharing surplus items with neighbours, there are plenty of simple ways to prevent good food from going to waste.”

It’s not just about the environment either — though food waste does account for 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is a sobering figure. It’s also about money. Every punnet of strawberries, every half-used tub of crème fraîche and every loaf of bread that goes in the bin is money you’ve already spent. And if you’re stretching to cover the cost of a family holiday, that stings.

Simple shifts that actually help

The good news is that a little bit of planning before you leave can make a genuine difference — without turning your pre-holiday prep into a full-time project. Too Good To Go has put together a few practical tips that are genuinely doable even when you’ve got kids bouncing off the walls and a to-do list the length of your arm.

• Plan your meals for the days before you go around what’s already in the fridge and cupboards rather than buying anything new.

• Freeze what you can. Bread, meat, leftover soup, even some fruit — most things freeze better than you’d think.

• Check expiry dates early so you know what needs to be eaten first rather than discovering it on the morning you leave.

• Share what you can’t use with a neighbour, family member or friend. Most people are happy to take a few bits off your hands.

• Stop the last-minute shop. Resist the urge to do a big supermarket run in the final few days before you travel — you almost certainly have enough.

A bit of prep goes a long way

None of this requires a complete lifestyle overhaul. It’s really just about building a few small habits into the pre-holiday chaos — the same chaos that involves finding one missing sandal, arguing about who gets the window seat on the plane and trying to remember if you packed sun cream.

Too Good To Go is Ireland’s largest marketplace for surplus food, with over a million registered users across the country and more than 1,800 partner stores. Their app lets you grab unsold food from local cafés, bakeries and shops at a reduced price — worth knowing even outside of holiday season if you’re trying to cut down on the weekly food bill.

This summer, a quick fridge audit before you head off could save you more than you’d expect. And honestly, starting the holiday without a pang of guilt about the bin bag you left behind? That’s a bonus nobody talks about enough.