This giveaway has now closed. Congratulations to Anna who was the lucky winner, check you inbox for more details!
Food waste drives me crazy. One of the reasons I am so keen on menu planning is that it helps me reduce food waste. Australian Bureau of Statistics research shows that food waste in Australian homes continues to rise with Australians wasting $20 billion worth of food every year, half of which comes from household consumers. On average, Australians discard around 20 percent of the food they buy, which is about $3800 per household annually.
Not only is food waste costly but it is also has a huge impact on our environment:
Consider for a moment that, by weight, around a third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted. According to figures recently released by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), food loss and waste accounts for about 4.4 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (4.4 Gt CO2e) per year. To put this in perspective, if food loss and waste were its own country, it would be the world’s third-largest emitter—surpassed only by China and the United States. In fact, food loss and waste generates more than four times as much annual greenhouse gas emissions as aviation, and is comparable to emissions from road transport. {source}
I am pretty good with food waste in terms of using up the food I plan to cook and we eat much of the food for left overs, but there is inevitably the end of the week fridge clean up when I have to throw out brown lettuce left over from a meal or strawberries that have a bit of fur growing on them. Sometimes the strawberries don’t seem to last more than a day in the fridge before they spoil!
So I was super keen to test out the Sunbeam VS1300 FoodSaver® Fresh. It is a vacuum seal machine to help you keep food fresh for up to twice as long as standard storage systems.
It works by removing the air and then vacuum sealing the freshness to keep it locked in. The FoodSaver® Fresh works on a large range of foods from avocados, berries, salads, veggies, left overs and even pantry foods like coffee and flour.
I have only had a day or so to play with the FoodSaver®, but am already impressed at how super easy it is to use and how well it works. It is only about the size of a kettle so it sits neatly on the kitchen bench without taking up too much room.
The machine comes with one container and five reusable vacuum zipper bags, both of which are BPA free. You can purchase larger containers and additional bags as suits your needs.
The bags are perfect for things like half an avocado. I decided to do a little test with an avocado to see how well the machine works. Below is the before photo:
The photo below is after just one night in the fridge and you can see already the difference between the FoodSaver® and my normal way of storing half an avocado – it already has started to develop brown spots. The FoodSaver® half looks exactly the same as when I put it in the fridge!
The container has already been tested out with success on left overs from our wrap meal. We have wrap meals or meals with cut veggies very frequently and as I mentioned we quite often end up throwing out brown lettuce etc. Even in an air tight container I find the lettuce gets a colour about it that make the kids not want to eat it! The lettuce looked exactly the same as it did when I placed it into the fridge when I opened the FoodSaver® Fresh container a day later.
I am also going to now stop buying grated cheese in packets and do my own. I have tried grating my own before but have found it goes mouldy quite quickly in containers, so think the Sunbeam FoodSaver® Fresh will solve that problem too!
The FoodSaver® Fresh retails for RRP $129 and would make an excellent Christmas gift for the foodie in your life, or someone who is wanting to prepare food in advance and have it stay fresh for longer. It is available online at and at leading retail outlets.
Sunbeam VS1300 FoodSaver® Fresh giveaway
Start reducing your food waste and therefore your food bills by entering for the chance to win the Sunbeam VS1300 FoodSaver® Fresh. With a RRP of $129 the FoodSaver® Fresh comes with:
- The VS1300 FoodSaver® Fresh machine
- 1 x FoodSaver® 3 Cup container
- 5 x FoodSaver® reusable vacuum zipper bags
The giveaway is open to Australian residents only and full terms and conditions of the giveaway can be found in the entry form. If you are reading via email and cannot see the entry form below, please click here to enter. Good luck!